Primark, multi-levelled shopping outlet of cheap clothes piled high and, probably, other things probably (IDK if I've ever been inside one, but they sure look cavernous from the outside), has announced that it's releasing a mobile game. Because, sure?
Primark Legends casts the player as a newly hired assistant in a Primark store. They'll have to help customers find the clothes they're after, keep the shelves neat and tidy, clean up any spills and messes, and track back and forth to the stockroom to ensure that everything that should be on the shop floor, um, is. There are also balloons to pop, toys lost by customers to find, and conga lines, apparently. Presumably this isn't made with our COVID times in mind.
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The aim of the game is to complete each working day with a five-star rating from your boss. Primark Legends features three intensity levels that are meant to represent "real-life Primark stores" - which can, one assumes, become very busy indeed. It's free to play, with no mention of in-app purchases, on both the Apple App Store and Google Play; and it is available today, August 27th.
Primark is pitching Legends as "the high street's first mobile gaming app". Which it may well be. I can't think of another, but I do remember the McDonald's-themed Global Gladiators on Mega Drive back in the 1990s, which was actually pretty good. What we don't suppose it addresses is how Primark sells us clothes for so little money.
Now, the brand's official website does provide some information on this, and it states that it "does not own factories and we are very selective about who we work with," adding, "The welfare of the people making our products matters to us." It says that it does not use sweatshops, and that its products are sourced from factories that meet "standards set by the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which are in turn based on those of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)".
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But we know that the UK's appetite for fast fashion does have problems, most recently highlighted by the conditions in Leicester factories making clothes for boohoo - and how many of us are really aware of where our budget-priced clothes are coming from? One game worth checking out that does explore the factories so commonly associated with cut-price clothing is Sweatshop, an award-winning title made in conjunction with Channel 4 and Labour Behind the Label, back in 2011. You can't actually play it now, but it's a valuable companion piece, let's say, to what Primark Legends is offering.
You can get Primark Legends right now, if the idea of working in retail for fun ticks your boxes. It's not like Fortnite is available on mobile stores at the moment, so go nuts, I guess. It's probably fine, and it's free, so you've nothing to lose except, um, gamer cred? There's no such thing.
Featured Image Credit: PrimarkTopics: Mobile Games