The Irony of a Game like Phone Story

Phone Story, created by Michael Pineschi, is a satirical and activist mobile game meant to teach users about the “dark side of [their] favorite smartphone.” The game is narrated throughout by a robotic voice, meant to represent your smartphone. As the narrator tells the story of how your phone is created and distributed to you, you move through four self-contained stages: playing a guard that ensures that laborers mining coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not allowed to rest, moving a net back and forth to catch workers attempting to commit suicide at a Foxconn factory, throwing phones at consumers as a salesperson in a retail store, and recycling components of discarded phones in methods that are unsafe. If you are unsuccessful in completing a level, the narrator of the game says “do not pretend that you are not complicit.”

The game itself presents an obvious message: that we are all complicit in harmful activities across the globe that we do not see on a daily basis when we use our devices. By using our phones, in essence, we are indirectly allowing those guards to admonish laborers, allowing people to die in other countries, and allowing the unhealthy recycling of these devices. By continuing to update our devices, we contribute to this “spiral of planned obsolescence.” The game is meant to be addictive, with the actions we are doing mimicking those of other phone games. By tapping, catching, aiming, throwing, and dragging, these motions feel natural to us, and the small reward of completing a level feels satisfying. The fact that the mechanics of the game itself are simple, yet addicting, contributes to the idea that we become complicit with or addicted to this same cycle of purchasing these devices, allowing for all of the horrors to take place. The argument is clear, from the description you read before you even begin the game, to the completion of “Story Mode,” to the never ending cycle in the “Obsolescence” mode.

Pineschi’s argument, though, only contributes to what his game claims to be against. He himself is exploiting the mass use of devices with which this game is compatible. Originally released on the iOS platform, it was then banned by Apple after only four days of being on the App Store, and was re-released on the Android market. This game can be played on mobile devices and computers worldwide. The desire to make this mass and controversial statement about the devices that we are playing on is apparent, given Pineschi is a member of “The Yes Lab,” an activist organization that helps groups with creative and attention-grabbing media actions. While this is an impactful and effective strategy in many areas of activism, for Phone Story in particular, I cannot help but see a glaring irony. They themselves are contributing to this idea of the omnipresence of the cell phone. Without these devices, this game would not exist. This is not to say that the message of their game is not important, but it feels like the purpose of this game has been lost in the excitement of achieving mass recognition for the causes that the creators care about. They argue that having this app on your phone will remind you of where it comes from, but the fact that you need the phone itself to be reminded of this defeats the entire purpose of having this game in the first place. You are complicit, and you are not doing anything to change it.

As Professor Jagoda mentioned in lecture, the game is not really changing attitudes about serious topics or thinking about learning objectives, it is more so thinking about creating an experience for the player and making an argument. Phone Story’s message is to remember that you are complicit, rather than to change anything about that fact. It is almost as if the game has given up and accepted that it itself is complicit in this cycle of “planned obsolescence,” allowing itself to stay alive, downloaded on our screens.

This leads me to wonder more broadly how serious topics can be represented in a way that incites a desire to actually change our behaviors, particularly in a scenario in which the platform and topic are inherently contradictory.