Phone Story, an iOS game designed to highlight workers rights issues in the supply chain and production of Apple's iPhone, has been removed from the App Store due to a violation of Apple's review guidelines. The game, from Every Day The Same Dream team MolleIndustria, consists of a series of four mini-games "that make the player symbolically complicit in coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labor in China, e-waste in Pakistan and gadget consumerism in the West," according to the official web site. But shortly after the game was announced and made available for purchase on the App Store earlier this morning, MolleIndustria tweeted that it had been removed for violating four separate app store review guidelines (as noticed by sister site IndieGames.com). The cited guidelines prohibit apps that "depict violence or child abuse," "present objectionable or crude content," "contain false, fraudulent of misleading representations" or fail to "comply with all legal requirements." Apple's App Store guidelines include many other provisions limiting the type of content that's acceptable in apps, including prohibitions against apps that criticize religion, include excessive erotic or violent content, or that contain "offensive or mean-spirited commentary." Other content distributed by Apple, including books and movies and TV shows sold on iTunes, are not subject to the same guidelines. In early 2010, Apple purged roughly 5,000 "sexy" apps from the digital store after a refinement of the App Store guidelines. MolleIndustria had pledged to donate its 70 percent share of the app's proceeds to various charities, starting with Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior.
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