I think that's the point. This app wasn't made to make people feel good and have a fun time playing a game. It's to alert them to the consequences of their economic decisions. By making a game of the sad reality of overworked factory workers committing suicide, it draws attention to what it is that allows us to play games on this device. Thus there is a connection established between game and death.
Setting aside the possibility that some workplace suicides are just suicides and not an artifact of capitalist oppression, sure. By that standard, there should be postage stamps emblazoned with the image of a disgruntled postal worker shooting his coworkers to death, just so we as consumers know what's at stake when we send a letter.
Yes, but this game isn't just about random workplace suicides. It's about workplace suicides in the context of manufacturing phones. It's about the specific plant that manufactures these phones. That context is important to understanding the game, and taken outside of that context, yes it would be absurd.
Didn’t someone run the numbers and find that the number of suicides / head at Foxconn was significantly lower than the number of suicides / head for the general population in that region?
We should really be comparing the Foxconn suicide rate with the suicide rate of employed people in the surrounding area. I suspect that the currently unemployed may up a decent part of the general population suicide rate.
