Published: April 28, 2011
Updated: 1:47 p.m.

Apple rejects iPhone illegal immigrant smuggling game

By CINDY CARCAMO

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Apple turned down an online game that allows players to drive a rickety-looking truck through what resembles a desert border in an attempt to smuggle people illegally into the United States.

The Apple App Store rejected the game "Smuggle Truck," the game's developer told the Associated Press Thursday.

"Smuggle Truck," an online game, allows players to drive a rickety truck through what resembles the U.S-Mexican border, over cliffs, mountains, dead animals and even babies.

COURTESY OWLCHEMY LABS/ TEXT BY CINDY CARCAMO

Developer Alex Schwartz of Owlchemy Labs, a Boston-based company, told the Associated Press that he "couldn't give details on the rejection but said it was content related," the story said.

Schwartz had called the game an "interactive satire."

However, the mobile application, which calculates scores by the number of immigrants helped crossing the U.S. border, drew the ire of immigration activists who call it inappropriate and said it trivializes the dangerous reality of those crossing the border.

Watch a video trailer of the game.

In an earlier story published by The Orange County Register, Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, blasted the game.

"This game mocks the human tragedy that represents undocumented migration. Dying at the border is not a game," Cabrera said. "Leaving your land and your family behind in search of a better life is not a game."

Smuggle truck can still be downloaded on PCs and Macs and includes a "legal mode" that portrays immigrants sitting in a waiting room for two decades, according to a USA Today story.

Read more about the story in PCMag.com, FOXnews.com, USA Today, and The Associated Press.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7924 or ccarcamo@ocregister.com

http://www.ocregister.com/news/game-298 ... story.html