After reading Joel Johnson’s piece about the Foxconn plant and listening to the perspective of our class on Tuesday, I still felt torn as to whether the happenings at the electronics manufacturing giant were right or wrong. Still without a firm conclusion after a day of thought, I began to think perhaps we were asking the wrong question. Maybe we should not hold Foxconn to the standard of being inherently right or wrong. Instead, maybe we should look to see if they have positively improved upon, avoided, or learned from the problems that we view as massive failures in our own industrial revolution.

From this perspective, I feel the company has in fact been doing all we can ask of them. Not only are they improving upon past injustices by creating a much cleaner, healthier work environment (even offering counseling facilities), but they are attempting to better their worker’s lives even more by offering accessible dining and living facilities. Granted, these facilities may be labeled inadequate by some, but isn’t it the attempt that we should value and applaud Foxconn for? Of course, every new plan or program will have its flaws, but if it is in some way more successful or simply less wrong than the previous version, then aren’t we taking a step in the right direction?

Regardless of people’s feelings, with such a large share of the market, it seems Foxconn is here to stay for at least the near future.

In jholt9’s post,  the question was raised “for the case of China, if the government can make “blacklists” (as described in the podcast), then shouldn’t that same government protect its workers from foreign manipulation? Should China exclude (either “exile” or heavily tax) companies that expose and harm its workers, as described in the readings and podcast?”

Regarding the first question, in reality, it is China that encourages foreign businesses to come in and take advantage of their huge work force and low wages, by enabling “Special Economic Zones” which give special tax incentives to foreign businesses as well as greater freedom on international trade activities .  In effect, by moving a business overseas, not only can a company save money with lower wages for the workers, but they will also not be as heavily taxed as they would in countries such as the US.  In addition, because these special economic zones fail to have strict labor laws, the company saves money by not having to pay for health insurance, liability, and lots of other things.  How does this benefit China?  It creates many more jobs for the citizens (which in turn provides better income for food for their families), as well as pumps international money into the local economy.  As described in the podcast, Chinese “labor unions” do very little to prevent underage workers from joining the workforce or helping citizens who are being exposed or harmed.   Even if China were to place sanctions on companies who mistreat their workers, they would be doing more damage to themselves than to the international businesses, as those businesses could simply move to Thailand or India to other economic zones and take advantage of the cheap labor there.  In turn, that would be higher unemployment rates for Chinese citizens, leading to greater poverty and a poor economy.

In conclusion, it isn’t just China that needs to change when it comes to their industrial class; as long as special economic zones exist with few or no (enforced) labor laws, businesses will continue to take advantage of the workers.  Although the businesses themselves should be held accountable for mistreatment, in the end, they are just doing what they can do get ahead and offer its consumers with the best possible product for the lowest price (and greatest revenue).

What stood out the most for me from yesterday’s class was the comparison of working conditions in the Foxconn factory to burger-flipping. Since I am evidently the only one in the class with prior experience in the “burger-flipping” industry (having worked at Wendy’s for two years in high school), I thought I would voice my opinion about this comparison.

In my opinion, Johnson has every right to compare the working conditions in the Foxconn factory to those of a fast-food restaurant. He mentions that working at such an eating establishment entails “repetitive, exhausting, and alienating” labor “over which [the employees] have no influence or authority.” That basically summarizes my experiences at Wendy’s. I was trained on all the positions, the most significant of which were the fry station, the grill, the sandwich station, the drive-thru, and the front counter. Believe me when I say that every position involved nothing but monotonous, tedious labor. Just imagine a seven-hour shift of standing at the grill station, incessantly throwing hamburger patties on the grill, and enduring the simmering heat that makes you perspire like a donkey in a sauna. Perhaps you would rather imagine standing in front of a cash register during the lunch rush and serving an enormous mob of impatient, disgruntled customers.

Let’s get one thing straight here: working at Wendy’s and working at the Foxconn factory are both nothing more than low-income corporate slavery. The conditions at both establishments are not exactly what one would call “pleasant.” However, my displeasing experiences at Wendy’s certainly did not justify something as drastic as suicide. If the conditions at a fast-food restaurant indeed mirror the conditions at the Foxconn factory, then I still can’t help but wonder why 17 workers would choose to take their own lives, just because they were subjected to a little menial labor. Other than the mundane routines that the workers are forced to follow and the less-than-ideal pay that they receive, it does not appear that the Foxconn working conditions are as unpleasant as we are originally led to believe.

After reading and discussing the articles by Johnson and Sample and listening to the audio of Daisey’s interview on This American Life in class today; I was given the impression that while we admit the conditions of the Foxconn factory are dismal they are still better off than most of the people that live and work in China. This seems sensible and logical if we look at the situation from a as a whole, however it is impossible to do so.

We all have, use and benefit from the devices that factories, like Foxconn, make and distribute. As fellow classmate and friend Kole Reddig mentions in his post about the assigned readings, “…Johnson, Sample, Daisey, and Phone Story don’t mention the enormous benefit that consumers of smartphones experience.” This absence from the assigned readings illustrates an obvious bias towards viewpoint that what Foxconn does is evil.

I do not believe Foxconn is evil, but I also don’t believe it is fair for us to compare on part of the process of creating a smart phone to another. We cannot compare the people who design and sell the phones as Reddig states in his comment, “The people who design smartphones, write the software for smartphones, and market smartphones certainly have happier stories than the workers at Foxconn.” While I agree with what Kole is stating here, we cannot compare one section of the “phone story” with another. Of course the people who live here in the U.S., who design, write the software, and sell the phones are going to be happier than those that make the device. The factory conditions and regulations are completely different in China than the U.S. However, when we look at just Chinese conditions the Foxconn factory is actually pretty nice.

So while I am not for the conditions they might work in, Foxconn is a step in the right direction for China. They may not meet our standards yet, but if they continue on the path they are on they will someday. In the end, we cannnot compare the different “chapters” in a “phone story” to one another. They are all really separate and individual stories that should be observed and criticized under the regulations and conditions that surround them. I may not like how my phone is made, but I realize that no action I take here in the U.S. is going to change the laws that govern how badly the workers are treated in a factory in another country.

I was interested in the class discussion topic about narratives in video games. It is usually obvious when a game has a narrative to it, but for the ones that don’t, why don’t they? For example, when I play the game Bejeweled, I know that there is no story to it. My goal in playing the game is just to mindlessly line up rows of similar gems to get to the next level. I play the game to pass time when I’m really, really bored. So for those that don’t have a narrative, is that done on purpose to make the player create their own scenario? When I play, I honestly don’t think up of a narrative for why I must line up those shiny gems, and I’m not sure who would. That seems like a whole other activity/game in itself, however you want to look at it. Maybe those with no narratives are just because they were made that way so the players can just escape from reality without going into another story from another world. A narrative appeals to more players because they get to live out some sort of fantasy in an alternate world. So maybe for those with no narrative, the players just want an activity to deal with when they need to pass time without getting themselves too involved in a story-based video game.

After all the discussion brought up by Gabe’s post about narrative yesterday, I started thinking about more and more.  Since it’s been such a prominent topic during class I figured I would post some more thoughts and questions about it and see what you all think.

First off, I think it’s important to remember, as Gabe pointed out, that video games were originally rooted in narrative. I don’t want to repeat all of Gabe’s examples, but I think it’s an important starting point. If games don’t have narrative now, where did they lose it?

Also, I was wondering what you all thought of games as creative space. This relates to games like minecraft and maybe even tetris. Even there is no express narrative, it could be the intent for us to create our own narrative. We already did this in class with tetris, and then we saw an example of someone else who put a very specific narrative to it (the creepy Brazilian version).

Finally, I was also wondering if you thought that maybe intelligence means that there is always some form of narrative in what we do.

After listening to the class discussion on Tuesday and reading through the blog posts, it’s clear that Galloway has challenged our usual perception of video games. His division of Gamic Action into four categories based on who’s playing (the person or machine) and where the playing is done (inside the game or outside the game) is certainly a doable classification, and will help us analyze all aspects of games critically.

However, I have a big complaint about Galloway’s way of classifying games.  Through class discussion, and in some blog posts, people pointed out examples of Gamic Action that didn’t quite fit into a distinct quadrant.  My mind went directly to playable cutscenes that blur the line between Pure Process and Dromenon.  Furthermore, diegetic and nondiegetic acts seem to blur together when the decisions made by the player are not based on just the rules of the game, but also the rules outside of the game.  For example, I play a game differently if the game has checkpoints, or a menu option to save progress.  This nondiegetic action of saving my game has a distinct effect on the Dromenon.  This leads me to my overreaching point:  Gamic Action that exists between two quadrants isn’t an exception, but actually more common than Gamic Action that fits purely into one quadrant.  This fact means that Galloway’s categories, the four moments, are over simplifications of what’s actually going on.  I’m afraid that placing a part of a game into a quadrant will hide more than illuminate.  For example, if we categorize an action as Dromenon, it hides all nondiegetic and machine aspects of the action.  I agree with professor Sample’s insight that there’s more of a continuum rather than four discrete categories.  Rather than place a Gamic Action in a quadrant, we should acknowledge every diegetic, nondiegetic, operator, and machine aspect of the action.