Popular Twitter profile trading card game, Stolen, gets pulled from the App Store due to too much negative buzz.
Remember the good old days of trading basketball cards with your friends? Creators Hey Inc. decided to bring that concept back, except with virtual people- more specifically, real Twitter accounts belonging to real people. For those who aren’t familiar with the app called Stolen, it turned active Twitter accounts into trading cards. Anyone with an invite code could play the game and “buy out” someone else’s account as long as they had enough in-game currency. Unfortunately, due to too many concerns and criticism, the creators decided to shut down the app.
According to Hey, Inc., they promised users they could “collect and trade” their favorite people on Twitter. The issue with this was that people were getting ‘bought out’ without their consent and knowledge. Once ‘owned,’ users were able to write anything they wanted to on the ‘trading card.’ We wouldn’t exactly call this fun, but apparently 40,000 active users did. The concept behind this app was so that people would become your “owner” and be able to give you a numerical value. A user’s value would depend on how many people were competing in ‘buying’ you out and your value would fluctuate depending on the ‘market.’
Ironically, Hey, Inc. tweeted on the app’s Twitter account that they decided to shut it down. U.S. Representative Katherine Clark apparently wrote a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey criticizing the app. The app definitely allows bullies and abusers to harass people. We’re not sure how the creators came up with this game, but let’s just say better luck next time if they ever try to come up with another buzz-creating app.
[Via TechCrunch]
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