game – followthethings.com

“Gold Farmers“
A documentary film written & directed by Ge Jin
Trailer embedded above. Search here for the whole film (sometimes uploaded in parts) online.

Travelling between China and USA, filmmaker Ge Jin talks to men who play Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Lineage’. Its players in the USA sometimes exchange real dollars for the game’s online currency in order to pay for extra game features like swords or amulets. They could earn online currency themselves in-game but, instead, talk about buying it. But that currency is produced and sold by Chinese men who play the same games all day in ‘gold farms’ to make a meagre living. Their places of work are described as ‘virtual sweatshops’ where they earn and sell virtual money through the labour of online game-play. But – unlike most – these producers and consumers meet and interact (albeit online, in the games that they play). They inhabit in the same online worlds, but as consumers and workers, buyers and sellers. This documentary film is an early example of ‘follow the thing’ activism focused on a digital commodity. So what do these players imagine and know about one another? How is one’s enjoyable leisure time activity affecting another’s full time work?

Page reference: Jack Parkin (2012) Gold Farmers (taster). followthethings.com/gold-farmers.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes.

Posted on September 20, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Phone Story

followthethings.com
Electronics

2011

APPLE

IPHONE

MINED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

REACH NEW AUDIENCES

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

TAKE IT TO PIECES

MAKE IT META

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

MAKE A WEBSITE

STREISAND EFFECT

“Phone Story“
An iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad game created by Paolo Pedercini & Michael Pineschi for Molleindustria in partnership with the Yes Lab.
Banned from the App Store. Google Play archived page here. Play online here. Game website here.

Imagine you’re on Apple’s App Store looking for a new game to play on your iPhone or iPad in September 2011. You see one called Phone Story. Its levels show how your iPhone or iPad were made. The rare metals that make them work so quickly – like Coltan – are extracted from the soil in the Democratic Republic of The Congo by children. The devices are made in a factory in China where the regime is so relentless that workers jump to their deaths from the roof. When a new model comes out, people queue for days and it seems they would run across a busy highway to get to the store before someone else. And then there’s all the e-waste that is generated when the phones that are replaced get thrown away. So, how do you progress through the levels? You’re a soldier who has to bash kids on the back of the head if their Coltan-digging slows. You’re ambulance crew trying to catch workers trying to jump to their deaths from the factory roof. You get the picture. This ‘first anti-iPhone iPhone game’ is hilariously cruel, tasteless, offensive, meta. But it’s 100% based on what’s happening in Apple’s supply chain right now. And what’s more offensive: the game or what it depicts? 901 people pay 99cents and download it. But it’s only available for 4 days, before Apple remove it. People speculate. How on earth did it get there in the first place? And what does its removal mean for free speech? Phone Story went viral as the ‘game Apple didn’t want you to play’. But, you could still play it on your Android phone or computer. You can still do the latter, here. How well would you want to do? What does it mean to get a high score?

Page reference: Eeva Kemppainen, Charlotte Edwards, Toby Bain, Wilhelm Wrede, Sophie Biddulph & Jamie Hall (2012) Phone Story. followthethings.com/phonestory.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 46 minutes.

Posted on August 11, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Pipe Trouble

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

END VIOLENCE & EXPLOITATION

JOIN THE DOTS

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

MAKE IT FAMILIAR

“Pipe Trouble“
A tablet video game by Alex Jansen in partnership with Jim Munrow for Pop Sandbox.
Gameplay video embedded above. No longer available from the iTunes Store

A documentary about laying gas pipelines across Canada is made for TV. To complement it, a computer game is commissioned. It’s based on the documentary’s research and the Pipe Mania game that came free with every copy of Windows 3.1. Your task? To lay a pipe from one side of the screen to the other. To keep your boss & local farmers happy. To make money. To get bombed by ‘ecoterrorists’. Critics said a video game that could be used to train eco-terrorists was sick. But had they played the game?

Page reference: Jenny Hart (2018) Pipe Trouble. http://followthethings.com/pipe-trouble.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 27 minutes.