The gaming industry from a Marxist perspective

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

The question I have is - How can we examine the gaming industry economically speaking by using Marxist theory?

For example... why is Free to Play (micro transactions) being used more than ever as an economic base?
Or... how does the gaming industry generate profits via stealth marketing?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I explored this topic some in my article for Kasama: "Class Narratives in Gaming (http://kasamaproject.org/threads/entry/class-narratives-in-video-games)"

To answer your questions though I would have to say that in regards to the Free to Play platform it is a jumping off point for the developers: get players hooked on the basic content then start charging them to access the premium content. In this way the developers builds a strong fan-base which can be looked towards to purchase an ever increasing array of in-game products (using real money, of course).

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

I explored this topic some in my article for Kasama: "Class Narratives in Gaming (http://kasamaproject.org/threads/entry/class-narratives-in-video-games)"

To answer your questions though I would have to say that in regards to the Free to Play platform it is a jumping off point for the developers: get players hooked on the basic content then start charging them to access the premium content. In this way the developers builds a strong fan-base which can be looked towards to purchase an ever increasing array of in-game products (using real money, of course).

Thank you, the Kasama Project website has some really interesting topics on it. I shall look further into it.

[svenne]

The autonomist Nick Dyer-Witheford wrote the book Games of Empire about the subject. While it's riddled with small errors (Gameboy Advance becomes Gameboy Advanced at least once), it's an okay book. A bit fragmented maybe, since it's a take on several subjects, but still one of the few, if maybe the only, somewhat marxist (he comes from the Antonio Negri/Empire school) book about video and computer games; but the big problem is that there's a lot of crappy post-modernism thrown in. There are several reviews of the book on the internet, if you want a taste, and a .pdf floating around (can't link it here).

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

The autonomist Nick Dyer-Witheford wrote the book Games of Empire about the subject. While it's riddled with small errors (Gameboy Advance becomes Gameboy Advanced at least once), it's an okay book. A bit fragmented maybe, since it's a take on several subjects, but still one of the few, if maybe the only, somewhat marxist (he comes from the Antonio Negri/Empire school) book about video and computer games; but the big problem is that there's a lot of crappy post-modernism thrown in. There are several reviews of the book on the internet, if you want a taste, and a .pdf floating around (can't link it here).

Thanks for the contribution, I'll take a look soon!

[Dear Leader]

I wonder if video games will have a place in a post-capitalist society. I think they should, but they will be vastly different, of course.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

I wonder if video games will have a place in a post-capitalist society. I think they should, but they will be vastly different, of course.

I don't want to put you off your thinking but we won't know how it'll turn out until we get there. Social change is really difficult to imagine, especially when you have something that is the polar opposite of what we have now (pure communism).

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I wonder if video games will have a place in a post-capitalist society. I think they should, but they will be vastly different, of course.

I wouldn't see why they would still not be around. I imagine you will see a transition from big block-busters to more Indie-oriented games; from games about militarism to games more concerned with various aspects of the "human condition". I imagine games about adventure, fantasy, sci-fi and what-not would still be available but probably not in the same manner they are now with the same class narrative and emphasis on violence.

[Sidagma]

Video games are a form of art. Recently with mobile gaming and systems like the Xbox Live Arcade (but especially the former, tbh,) tools to create them have been made accessible to more people, and video games, along with other forms of technology, are being made by smaller, more diverse teams or even individuals. This is fully ideologically compatible with capitalism. The lack of social critique in video games is a reflection of the fact that western culture is just not that self-aware in general. It's shoddy writing, mostly, rather than being a conscious effort by video game developers to back one thing or the other ideologically.

Also, more money from downloaded games go directly to the developers. This is why western companies have been backing them so intensely; Gamestop's business model relies mostly on revenue from used games, and developers get no money from Gamestop selling used games.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Pure specultation: after a revolution a lot of our early basic learning will be done through video games because of their interactive nature and ability to adjust to someone's skill level. We'd probably also have awsome learning-centers of some sort, so I don't mean video-game learning like it's promoted now as a way to cut back on teachers by sitting kids in a lab to learn how to do busy work.

Anyway, I'm honestly very ignorent of games both on a consumer/fan side as well as having an understanding of the industry (I grew up with Atari and Nintendo and Mario 3 is the last game I played from begining to end). There's tons of radical theory on other popular and fine arts and this (along with pro-sports) is an area I wish we had more people focused on.

Here's a website about video games: it's mostly just game-reviews from a left-wing perspective though - not much theory or broader discussion.

http://www.leftgamerreview.org/

[bcbm]

Pure specultation: after a revolution a lot of our early basic learning will be done through video games because of their interactive nature and ability to adjust to someone's skill level.

i dont mean to sound like a traditionalist or something but i would hope we'd be spending a lot more time outside and a lot more time interacting as communal groups of caring adults

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Pure specultation: after a revolution a lot of our early basic learning will be done through video games because of their interactive nature and ability to adjust to someone's skill level. We'd probably also have awsome learning-centers of some sort, so I don't mean video-game learning like it's promoted now as a way to cut back on teachers by sitting kids in a lab to learn how to do busy work.

Anyway, I'm honestly very ignorent of games both on a consumer/fan side as well as having an understanding of the industry (I grew up with Atari and Nintendo and Mario 3 is the last game I played from begining to end). There's tons of radical theory on other popular and fine arts and this (along with pro-sports) is an area I wish we had more people focused on.

Here's a website about video games: it's mostly just game-reviews from a left-wing perspective though - not much theory or broader discussion.

http://www.leftgamerreview.org/

Thank you for the website. Seems like a nice counter to IGN, Gamespot etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

i dont mean to sound like a traditionalist or something but i would hope we'd be spending a lot more time outside and a lot more time interacting as communal groups of caring adultsYeah, pure speculation. I also don't think there's anything wrong with entertainment for the sake of entertainment, but the repetition and the sort of desire to run through something "perfectly" in games seems like it could have very good educational applications just like historical fiction or hard sci-fi can be used as an entertaining way to explore some complex real history or scientific theory. Also computer networks and more open and available programs would allow people to have more access to education sources from all over the world and connect to specialists or whatnot. So I think there are ways that technology can really potentially enahance learning opportunities (if our education system was actually aimed at pure learning). In the current context though, online courses and technology are being used to de-skill educators and reduce public education.

At any rate, I agree that learning is best as a social activity and I definately would be shocked and a little creeped out if I got in a time machine and transported to a liberated world where people learn as little automotons sitting in front of monitors. Personally I'd like to see very limited "basic and relativly mandatory education" for young people (basically just reading and some math and learning how to interact in social settings and how to devlop skills for self-learning) and then beyond that education is a life-long and totally voluntary thing where education facilities would exist to help people learn and resarch what they want and connect with others learning the same things and teachers would be there to help assist and guide that but not sort of dictate a one-size fits all lesson.

[Invader Zim]

Video games are a form of art. Recently with mobile gaming and systems like the Xbox Live Arcade (but especially the former, tbh,) tools to create them have been made accessible to more people, and video games, along with other forms of technology, are being made by smaller, more diverse teams or even individuals. This is fully ideologically compatible with capitalism. The lack of social critique in video games is a reflection of the fact that western culture is just not that self-aware in general. It's shoddy writing, mostly, rather than being a conscious effort by video game developers to back one thing or the other ideologically.

Also, more money from downloaded games go directly to the developers. This is why western companies have been backing them so intensely; Gamestop's business model relies mostly on revenue from used games, and developers get no money from Gamestop selling used games.

I was with you, until you suggested that there is no social critique in games. This is the typical attitude people have towards games, who dislike them, but don't actually play them or aren't intelligent enough to understand the references being made. Bioshock was, for instance, a sustained critique of libertarian politics, and in particular, Randian 'philosophy'. Of course, you can look to other games, such as the entire Fallout series, as well as numerous other games by developers like Bioware and Bethesda, and find social commentary in mainstream games. Even older games, like Cannon Fodder, offer, through extremely dark humour, a critique of war. For instance, the scene before each new mission shows a line of new recruits which extends beyond the horizon, and the queue is situated directly adjacent to the grave representing each individual soldier the player has lost.

http://www.escapecrate.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/cannonfodder.jpg

[ckaihatsu]

Pure specultation: after a revolution a lot of our early basic learning will be done through video games because of their interactive nature and ability to adjust to someone's skill level. We'd probably also have awsome learning-centers of some sort, so I don't mean video-game learning like it's promoted now as a way to cut back on teachers by sitting kids in a lab to learn how to do busy work.





i dont mean to sound like a traditionalist or something but i would hope we'd be spending a lot more time outside and a lot more time interacting as communal groups of caring adults


I'll take the hard-line here and go in the *other* direction, to note that traditional institutions like the family, and even schools, may be more constraining and limiting than necessary.

Instead of tying adults down into de facto parenting, as is the norm with nuclear -- and even extended -- families, a more enlightened society might *automate* the basics of birth-to-basic-autonomy rearing so that the role of child-care is never forced and is only sheerly voluntary.

Parents today are finding that their *infants* are drawn to interactive display devices like tablets -- if this is *not* resisted, and even *developed*, we might find that assisting independence and autonomy from the very beginning, as through pre-programmed cognitive challenges, is the better path.

Comrades tend to forget or ignore that the traditional family structure is bourgeois and problematic, for many reasons -- unfortunately it's broadly seen as homey and inviolable, while our politics *should* be roundly critiquing it on a regular basis.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

a. I work in the industry as an FQA tester, and it's actually the most precarious work I've ever done this side of piecework agricultural labour. I make minimum wage (a coworker who has been there for five years makes all of two bones above minimum wage, and even that only for performing certain types of specialized testing); overtime is not voluntary, and in instances where an employee can legally refuse, we've been told explicitly that HR will remember which testers "carry their weight". We literally receive an email every night informing us that we'll be working the next day, until the day we don't receive the email because we haven't been making quota, haven't taken enough overtime shifts, etc.

b. I'm not convinced that video games are particularly useful or would have particular relevance in a post-capitalist society. Not only is the necessary technological infrastructure incredibly resource intense (both in terms of computers themselves, and the electricity necessary to run them), but what do videogames, tangibly, produce? Poor eyesight, short attention spans, poor cardiovascular health, stunted imaginations, questionable social development. Sorry, can't say I share y'alls enthusiasm for the new socialist gaming. I think it falls roughly in to the same category as, "Nuclear power will mean unlimited clean energy!" and "Robots will wipe my ass for me!"

c. I don't mean, "b" to bash video games or gamers in an immediate sense, insofar as capitalism generally tends to produce poor health, stunted imaginations, and questionable social development. Obviously, no quarterback, hip indie rocker, or whatever other subject shaped by capital is a more acceptable model for future social life than than a gamer is. That is, I have no hate for gaming over and above hating McDonalds, parking meters, universities, etc. - just in its particularities.

[subcp]

There's a good article about artificial scarcity from the journal Internationalist Perspectives. They have an interesting take on digital products:


At the center of the trend towards an economy based on artificial scarcity, stands IT, which has driven capitalism’s tendency to lower the value of commodities to its most extreme point. Since it costs next to nothing to reproduce digital goods, their social value, in Marxist terms, is also next to nothing. They are in effect abundant and can only be made profitable by sabotaging the law of value, by limiting competition to prevent the market to establish their prices freely. Other companies that base their profit-strategies on artificial scarcity express the same tendency. Their actually production costs are usually very low but their profits are not. But what is the source of these profits? Since it requires ever less labour time to reproduce their commodities (the cost of R&D may be high but has no bearing on the cost of reproduction), the part of it that is unpaid, surplus value, must fall too and thus cannot explain the rise of their profits. The profit is surplus value but it comes from elsewhere: it is paid by the customers.

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_54_scarcity.html

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

b. I'm not convinced that video games are particularly useful or would have particular relevance in a post-capitalist society. Not only is the necessary technological infrastructure incredibly resource intense (both in terms of computers themselves, and the electricity necessary to run them), but what do videogames, tangibly, produce? Poor eyesight, short attention spans, poor cardiovascular health, stunted imaginations, questionable social development. Sorry, can't say I share y'alls enthusiasm for the new socialist gaming. I think it falls roughly in to the same category as, "Nuclear power will mean unlimited clean energy!" and "Robots will wipe my ass for me!"

1) The resource cost will be ameliorated by the fact that hardware will be designed more for repair of faulty parts rather than wholesale replacement, and upgrades won't be driven by the market. As for the energy cost, even a desktop PC consumes less than a fridge-freezer. I don't think it would be especially taxing on electricity generation, as opposed to say, widespread electric heating.

2) As for what video games produce, I think you're guilty of accentuating the negative while ignoring the positives, and also ignoring the reasons the negatives you mentioned exist in the first place. Poor eyesight because of bad lighting or ill-designed displays can't reasonably be blamed on video games. Attention spans? Are you really trying to pin that on gaming and not say, the fact that school and work are shit? Poor health is generally down to a lack of physical activity, rather than the games themselves. Stunted imaginations? Just because gaming has become more popular, resulting in a raft of common-denominator games being produced (remember Sturgeon's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law)), doesn't mean imaginations have been stunted any more than the fact that loads of crap and mediocre films exist mean that our imaginations are limited. As for questionable social development, I've no idea where you're getting that from.


c. I don't mean, "b" to bash video games or gamers in an immediate sense, insofar as capitalism generally tends to produce poor health, stunted imaginations, and questionable social development. Obviously, no quarterback, hip indie rocker, or whatever other subject shaped by capital is a more acceptable model for future social life than than a gamer is. I guess that is I have no hate for gaming over and above hating McDonalds, parking meters, universities, etc. - just in its particularities.

I think there is a lot that can be criticised about contemporary games and gaming culture, including but not limited to stuff like heterosexism, unquestioning acceptance of certain narratives, and so on. But I think the problems you have highlighted have more to do with the nature of the entertainment industry under capitalism in general, as opposed to video games in themselves, since much of what you've said and more could just as well apply to television.

[Invader Zim]

b. I'm not convinced that video games are particularly useful or would have particular relevance in a post-capitalist society. Not only is the necessary technological infrastructure incredibly resource intense (both in terms of computers themselves, and the electricity necessary to run them), but what do videogames, tangibly, produce? Poor eyesight, short attention spans, poor cardiovascular health, stunted imaginations, questionable social development. Sorry, can't say I share y'alls enthusiasm for the new socialist gaming. I think it falls roughly in to the same category as, "Nuclear power will mean unlimited clean energy!" and "Robots will wipe my ass for me!"



This is all pretty insulting. It relies upon the stereotype that gamers are all fat, bespectacled, unimaginative individual, with no friends, who live in our parent's basements. It is also horseshit, and there is absolutely no convincing evidence that I have seen that games, videos, TV, films, radio, 'degenerate art' and literature, and any other medium of expression or entertainment that has been before and all of which have had the same charges leveled at them, harm the consumer in any way. What harms a consumer is being lazy fuck, who doesn't realize that if you spend too much time sat on your arse then it will soon expand gaining so much mass that eventually other, smaller, bottoms will start orbiting it. And the problem there is with lazy people who eat too much and don't do enough physical exercise. And the solution is quite simple, they spend four hours a week watching less TV and playing games, and take an hours exercise four times a week, be it a stint in the gym or just taking a gentle walk. We could solve the lion share of the expanding obesity problem in America and Europe in a matter of months if everybody did that.

Lets deal with these one at a time:

1. People have bad eyesight because they strain their eyes, be it watching too much TV, reading in dark conditions, spending too much time looking at a monitor, and yes, playing games. But that isn't the fault of the game, book, film, or whatever - that is the fault of the individual. It's like suggesting that eating chips is bad because it results in ill-health - no. Eating too much without moderation is bad for your health. The only times it is not the fault of the individual is in the case of children, in which case the fault lies with bad parenting. Similarly, it is hardly the fault of music artists if their fans damage their hearing because they have been listening to music with the volume turned up too high for too long.

2. It is difficult to grasp how the argument that a product, like computer games, can lower an individual's attention span. Can we say the same of book and films? Surely if a person can spend hours fixated on a game then they are providing evidence of a considerable attention span? Meanwhile, I guess it is easy for a parent or teacher to suggest that video games are the root cause of a child's deficient attention span. It is much easier to blame the games than admit that the subject matter they are imparting is either inherently tedious, and far more likely, being presented poorly, or that their child, in the case of parents, is not the prodigy they have always imagined.

3. Poor health is, in this respect, as Noxion has noted, the product of being lazy. If you sit in front of your computer or console for six hours a day, stopping only to sleep, shit, eat and go to work, and don't do any physical activities then you will get fat and clog your arteries. Of course, the same goes for TV, films, books, the internet, etc. The issue here isn't gaming it is people not getting off their bulbous, cellulite riddled, and expanding behinds and looking after their health. And there is nothing more disgraceful than the sight of a fat child - and that is because it isn't the child's fault, again, it is the parents at fault.

4. This issue kind of is the same as the charge that gaming lower attention span. Indeed both charges are inherently problematic because the notion that an individual is imaginative is as inherently subjective as it is nebulous and unmeasurable. But, nevertheless, it is testable against wider societal trends, I feel. If, as you suggest, there is a negative causal relationship between gaming and imagination, then increased gaming should result in decreased evidence of an imaginative society. But this is not the case:

http://www.acagamic.com/uploads/2009/01/video_game_industry_revenue.png

'Compiled using data collected by the U.S. Department of Education, Brainard writes that the chart shows that “the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities has grown faster since 1987 than the number in other fields, increasing humanities’ market share–from about 10 percent that year to 12 percent in 2008.”'

http://4humanities.org/2012/10/infographics-friday-bachelor-of-arts-degrees-1988-2008/

http://4humanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bahumanities2008.png

5. I'm not sure how you can quantify or qualify 'social development', but what evidence is there to support this contention? Do people who play games have no friends, fewer friends, or fail to adequately interact with those friends?

[bcbm]

Comrades tend to forget or ignore that the traditional family structure is bourgeois and problematic, for many reasons -- unfortunately it's broadly seen as homey and inviolable, while our politics *should* be roundly critiquing it on a regular basis.

i wasnt talking about traditional family structure

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Re: Zim

1. In case you missed it, I play videogames for a living. I'm not unfamiliar with gamers, nor do I see us as unusually slovenly/lazy/unimaginative. Those things are the consequence of many parts of bourgeois society. That said, angry rants in defence of gamers' social skills aren't likely to win anyone over in that regard.

2. Poor health is not a consequence of "laziness" any more than unemployment or poverty is (though, not coincidentally, unemployment and poverty tend to go hand in hand with poor health). That's a reactionary narrative that seeks to hold to account individuals for a society that is unable to provide access to meaningful opportunities for people to "get off their asses" (not to mention appropriate diets, clean air, free and open spaces, time, and so on). Videogames, television, etc. are part and parcel of that and we have to consider them as they actually exist - not as an abstract ideal where they are not a) mostly reactionary garbage and b) a sad compensation for lives lived without adventure.

3. See if you can imagine your life without videogames. Let me know how it goes.

[Invader Zim]

1. In case you missed it, I play videogames for a living. I'm not unfamiliar with gamers, nor do I see us as unusually slovenly/lazy/unimaginative. Those things are the consequence of many parts of bourgeois society. That said, angry rants in defence of gamers' social skills aren't likely to win anyone over in that regard.

Yet you linked games as a causal factor in all of them. So which is it? And I'm not remotely angry and neither was my reply. Nor is it a rant.


Poor health is not a consequence of "laziness" any more than unemployment or poverty is (though, not coincidentally, unemployment and poverty tend to go hand in hand with poor health).

Of course laziness, and in this context I specifically mean a willing refusal to conduct exercise, is a contributing factor in ill health and anyone who suggests otherwise fails to grasp basic human anatomy. If someone does not do exercise they vastly increase the probability that they will suffer from ill-health. That there are a myriad of other contributors to ill health does not negate this fact. And you, yourself made that self same point, by suggesting that games cause illness. Though, in actual fact, it isn't the gaming but prolonged periods of inactivity each day, sustained over months if not years, without regular exercise which cause these problems - not the game. And yes, poverty and unemployment are causes of ill-health, the latter in particular is a major issue in terms of mental health.


That's a reactionary narrative that seeks to hold to account individuals for a society that is unable to provide access to meaningful opportunities for people to "get off their asses"

If you can spend that much time playing a game, watching TV, reading a book, going online, each evening then you can spend thirty minutes going for a walk, lifting some weights, or whatever. We aren't talking about people with disabilities here, or single parents working three jobs, people who literally cannot exercise. We are talking about the stereotype you posited: that gaming results in ill-health. And you're wrong. It isn't gaming that is the problem, it is the decision to play them excessively and at the expense of regular physical activity. And that is a choice.


Videogames, television, etc. are part and parcel of that and we have to consider them as they actually exist

Indeed, we do. And you clearly view them as malevolent products which somehow steal an individual's time preventing them from having a suitably active enough lifestyle to ward off heart disease. And I suggest that this clearly isn't the case, and that people have an active choice regarding how they spend their free time. And yes, I spend a fair bit of my free time playing games, watching TV, reading books, and talking to people such as yourself on the internet, and stopped jogging over the last six months or so because I couldn't be bothered. The result is I've started to put on a little weight and losing stamina. But I can hardly blame you for that, any more than I can blame the creators of Mass Effect or Boardwalk Empire. That is my informed decision, blaming games or gaming culture doesn't cut it. Similarly, when I used to smoke that was also my decision, just as it was my decision to try (and eventually succeed) to stop smoking.


a) mostly reactionary garbage and b) a sad compensation for lives lived without adventure.

I'll agree with the former, I'd suggest that 99% of everything consumed for entertainment or leisure is artistically, politically or morally bunk - and that games are no exception. But games and TV are far from alone in that respect. However, the latter is not something I agree with. Most 'adventure' be it real or imagined, involves risk, which is what makes them exciting. I'd much rather play Battlefield 1942 than have actually fought the Wehrmacht, or anybody else for that matter.


3. See if you can imagine your life without videogames. Let me know how it goes.

I don't have to imagine it, my profession regularly requires what might be described as work loaded periods in which free time is at a high premium and sacrifices, like TV and games, are made. And you also seem to assume that games cannot stimulate imagination.

[Raúl Duke]

i dont mean to sound like a traditionalist or something but i would hope we'd be spending a lot more time outside and a lot more time interacting as communal groups of caring adults

I agree with this...

but I do want video games in my post-revolutionary society.

I still want to play future installments of Fallout and maybe one day experience full 3d immersive game-play.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

i dont mean to sound like a traditionalist or something but i would hope we'd be spending a lot more time outside and a lot more time interacting as communal groups of caring adults

But what does that actually entail? Small talk? I'm shit at it, and see no attraction or utility in improving my ability to talk about literally nothing of consequence, and I'm far from the only one who sees it like that. I don't like gardening since I can't even own a potted plant without the stupid thing dying on me. Animals are better in that respect since they can at least let you know if they're hungry and/or thirsty, but that is counterbalanced by the various messes they make. Appreciating nature? Surely that contains the implicit assumption that there is any of it worth appreciating within a reasonable distance? I'd love to visit the Antarctic, the Sahara, or the Himalayas, but somehow I doubt that even in a communist society I could do such things on an everyday basis, for sheer logistical reasons if nothing else.

Also, I'm fairly sure that staying indoors is inherently a more efficient and less environmentally impacting lifestyle than tramping all over the countryside, undertaking long journeys to appreciate the world's beauty spots in person, camping one's arse all over the place, and any other outdoor activity one cares to name, since by nature and definition they take up more space. Actually, even better examples would be activities like hunting, trapping and fishing. If everyone was doing those activities with the same popularity and intensity that they currently play video games, there would be nothing left!


Re: Zim

1. In case you missed it, I play videogames for a living. I'm not unfamiliar with gamers, nor do I see us as unusually slovenly/lazy/unimaginative. Those things are the consequence of many parts of bourgeois society. That said, angry rants in defence of gamers' social skills aren't likely to win anyone over in that regard.

Then I take it this is a retraction of the claim that video games in themselves are responsible for "stunted imaginations" and "questionable social development"?


2. Poor health is not a consequence of "laziness" any more than unemployment or poverty is (though, not coincidentally, unemployment and poverty tend to go hand in hand with poor health). That's a reactionary narrative that seeks to hold to account individuals for a society that is unable to provide access to meaningful opportunities for people to "get off their asses" (not to mention appropriate diets, clean air, free and open spaces, time, and so on).

Then surely that is to blame, not the specific medium of video games.


Videogames, television, etc. are part and parcel of that and we have to consider them as they actually exist - not as an abstract ideal where they are not a) mostly reactionary garbage and b) a sad compensation for lives lived without adventure.

Why do I never see this kind of rhetoric being spouted out nearly as often with regards to reading books or watching movies? It's not as if it's impossible to find books with reactionary narratives or adventure substitutes therein. What possible reason, aside from sheer snobbishness against a relatively new medium, is there for singling out video games in this manner?


3. See if you can imagine your life without videogames. Let me know how it goes.

Why should any of us do that? What would be the point? Video games have already been invented and aren't likely to be going away in the foreseeable future.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

But what does that actually entail? Small talk? I'm shit at it, and see no attraction or utility in improving my ability to talk about literally nothing of consequence, and I'm far from the only one who sees it like that. I don't like gardening since I can't even own a potted plant without the stupid thing dying on me. Animals are better in that respect since they can at least let you know if they're hungry and/or thirsty, but that is counterbalanced by the various messes they make. Appreciating nature? Surely that contains the implicit assumption that there is any of it worth appreciating within a reasonable distance? I'd love to visit the Antarctic, the Sahara, or the Himalayas, but somehow I doubt that even in a communist society I could do such things on an everyday basis, for sheer logistical reasons if nothing else.

Also, I'm fairly sure that staying indoors is inherently a more efficient and less environmentally impacting lifestyle than tramping all over the countryside, undertaking long journeys to appreciate the world's beauty spots in person, camping one's arse all over the place, and any other outdoor activity one cares to name, since by nature and definition they take up more space. Actually, even better examples would be activities like hunting, trapping and fishing. If everyone was doing those activities with the same popularity and intensity that they currently play video games, there would be nothing left!

I really want to chose my words carefully here, and I really don't want to be hurtful/judgemental. I think that what you're expressing is not uncommon, but speaks precisely to the phenomena I have in mind when I'm criticizing videogames in particular, and the culture of which they are a product.
That said, that's all pretty sad. The beauty of the world isn't in any exotic locale - it's under the concrete, or in an abandoned building, or in some quasi-secret nook over a few fences, and under a bridge down by the river. Our inability to find it speaks volumes.
Social life reduced to small talk is god-awful - I agree - but it's another symptom of the emotional poverty of capitalist life.
You may never have a green-thumb, but there's got to be something out there that relates to the direct reproduction of your being of which you are capable, or could be under better circumstances.



Then I take it this is a retraction of the claim that video games in themselves are responsible for "stunted imaginations" and "questionable social development"?

No - not really. For example, guns don't "cause mass shootings" as a social phenomenon, but guns themselves do cause piles of bleeding children. So, when you say:


Then surely that is to blame, not the specific medium of video games.

I agree and disagree. I agree that a capitalism without videogames would find some other way of killing our imaginations (and, as you mention, Hollywood did a pretty decent job before videogames ever existed), just as a capitalism armed with swords instead of cluster bombs would still be brutal and bloody. That said, cluster bombs and videogames both have peculiar characteristics.


Why do I never see this kind of rhetoric being spouted out nearly as often with regards to reading books or watching movies? It's not as if it's impossible to find books with reactionary narratives or adventure substitutes therein. What possible reason, aside from sheer snobbishness against a relatively new medium, is there for singling out video games in this manner?

Well, for one, try to control and sedate a six-year-old with a copy of Atlas Shrugged and let me know how it goes. Videogames, like any medium, have peculiar characteristics. The level of immersion is unique, which is why the number of people who play WoW twenty hours a day far exceeds the number of people in book clubs.

Of course, cinema has also been used as a tool of mass control, and should be subject to equal scrutiny . . . but this is a thread about videogames.

As for the written word . . . let me know when you find an author capable of such vivid detail that you don't have to use your imagination at all.

Alternatively, let me know when videogame of version of "Autumn Of The Patriarch" hits Steam.


Why should any of us do that? What would be the point? Video games have already been invented and aren't likely to be going away in the foreseeable future.

:thumbup1:

[Fionnagáin]

The question I have is - How can we examine the gaming industry economically speaking by using Marxist theory?
Video game developers make their money from, essentially rent-seeking. Access to a given bundle a code is strictly worth nothing, because unlike the box or the disk, it represents no particular quantity of socially necessary labour-time. A disk embodies a definite about of labour, and so represents the equivalent exchange-value, but code can be reproduced infinitely, with no additional labour-time expended by the creator, and so possess no exchange-value. (The same is true of other media, like books and music.) Because of this, it isn't fundamentally important whether the developer charges for a one-off purchase, a subscription, or microtransactions. They're just different ways of extracting rent, and developers will opt for that which seems likely to produce the highest return based on the game and its target audience.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I really want to chose my words carefully here, and I really don't want to be hurtful/judgemental. I think that what you're expressing is not uncommon, but speaks precisely to the phenomena I have in mind when I'm criticizing videogames in particular, and the culture of which they are a product.
That said, that's all pretty sad. The beauty of the world isn't in any exotic locale - it's under the concrete, or in an abandoned building, or in some quasi-secret nook over a few fences, and under a bridge down by the river.

I've done my fair share of urban exploration as a kid, and that's perhaps why I can appreciate that broken concrete and abandoned buildings can have their own kind of beauty about them. But thanks to the internet I can now appreciate detailed media* of stuff I would never, ever have run across in my youthful backstreet wanderings, and certainly nothing I've managed to find since then can compare. Far from cutting me off and leaving me rootless, digital media have enabled me to reconnect with those days in ways I never thought possible as a younger, the motif of the (post-)industrial wasteland connecting the hazy dream-worlds of my childhood with the more mature and complex fictional settings inspired during my early adulthood, that is, now.

*Here's a low-resolution example of the kind of thing I mean:

http://i38.tinypic.com/4he9l3.jpg


Our inability to find it speaks volumes.
Social life reduced to small talk is god-awful - I agree - but it's another symptom of the emotional poverty of capitalist life.
You may never have a green-thumb, but there's got to be something out there that relates to the direct reproduction of your being of which you are capable, or could be under better circumstances.

I like going camping, hill-walking and other similar kinds of outdoor activities. I certainly prefer them to all these boring team sports that are heavily promoted these days. In a communist society I hope that I would get to do outdoorsy things more often, but as of right now those kinds of pursuits cost more than I can afford, mainly because I live on the outskirts of a major international city where there's nothing but wretched suburbia (*vomits*) or flat pseudo-countryside that is as interesting and welcoming as watching paint dry.

I'd also like to go shooting and hunting, but there are legal and practical barriers to those pastimes.


No - not really. For example, guns don't "cause mass shootings" as a social phenomenon, but guns themselves do cause piles of bleeding children. So, when you say:

I agree and disagree. I agree that a capitalism without videogames would find some other way of killing our imaginations (and, as you mention, Hollywood did a pretty decent job before videogames ever existed), just as a capitalism armed with swords instead of cluster bombs would still be brutal and bloody. That said, cluster bombs and videogames both have peculiar characteristics.

So what are these imagination-killing characteristics of video games, since you failed to elaborate on them?

Personally, my experiences lend me to the belief that "there is nothing new under the sun". Humans in similar material conditions are likely to come up with similar solutions to certain problems. Why should things be any different?


Well, for one, try to control and sedate a six-year-old with a copy of Atlas Shrugged and let me know how it goes. Videogames, like any medium, have peculiar characteristics. The level of immersion is unique, which is why the number of people who play WoW twenty hours a day far exceeds the number of people in book clubs.

Of course, cinema has also been used as a tool of mass control, and should be subject to equal scrutiny . . . but this is a thread about videogames.

I'd say that it is more the interactive nature of video games, rather than their immersive nature per se, which allows developers to use a host of psychological hooks to keep players coming back: 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted - Cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html)

But I can't help but notice that the tricks listed in the linked article pertain mainly to MMORPGs and online "games" like Farmville, games I've never really found attractive. My favourite kind of video games are mainly First-Person Shooters, Real-Time Strategy games, and games where one pilots armoured fighting vehicles, spacecraft, mechs (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealRobotGenre), and/or aircraft. I love shooting things.

Having said that, video games also enable me to act out my more constructive whims and fantasies. Minecraft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft) has quickly won a place in my heart, enabling me to build the kind of structures that would not be possible in real life without a very large and expensive Lego set. Indeed, Minecraft's procedural generation capabilities enable me to place my creations in an endless interactive world that is constantly being updated with new features and functionality!


As for the written word . . . let me know when you find an author capable of such vivid detail that you don't have to use your imagination at all.

You might not need your imagination to visualise what is going on in the virtual world of a video game, but there are still a host of questions one can ask about the virtual world as it is presented to the player, and time/budget limitations mean that the players will always have more questions than the writers and developers will be able to answer.

Also, the virtual worlds of video games can be used as a vehicle in which players role-play fictional settings and fantasies of their own, interpreting the creation of the writers and developers in their own way and for their own purposes. This can be done as a social activity with other players, or for more private enjoyment by oneself.

The above, along with the popularity and relative ease of video game modification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_%28video_gaming%29), means that there is plenty of scope for players to bring something of themselves to the game, making their own mark on it.


Alternatively, let me know when videogame of version of "Autumn Of The Patriarch" hits Steam.

Tropico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico)?

[MarxSchmarx]

By the way, there is this excellent (if slightly older) analysis of the horrendous working conditions in the software game development industry:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29292/Analysis_Is_The_Game_Industry_A_Happy_Place.php

a somewhat more tongue in cheek approach was presented here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/4032/Wives_of_Rockstar_San_Diego_employees_have_collect ed_themselves.php

The conclusion from all of these: there is a practically infinite pool of expendable labor willing to sacrifice themselves to produce the next big hit that the major producers have no qualms exploiting for every penny it is worth. Welcome to the working class.

[Klaatu]

How can we examine the gaming industry economically speaking by using Marxist theory?

At first I thought you meant the gambling industry.

Well, whatever. Please let me sound off on gambling, even though this is not exactly what this thread is about. IMHO, gambling serves absolotely no purpose for the enrichment or betterment of society. It is parasitic and counterproductive. Gambling is the Capitalists' dream: profit on the simple-minded folks' dream of prosperity and riches. It makes poor people even poorer, because they live in the false premise that they will "strike it rich." The truth is that, a single gambler's probability of winning anything at all is very very small.

For godsakes, let us stop legal gambling (especially via The State, e.g. 'lottery tickets' etc)

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

At first I thought you meant the gambling industry.

Well, whatever. Please let me sound off on gambling, even though this is not exactly what this thread is about. IMHO, gambling serves absolotely no purpose for the enrichment or betterment of society. It is parasitic and counterproductive. Gambling is the Capitalists' dream: profit on the simple-minded folks' dream of prosperity and riches. It makes poor people even poorer, because they live in the false premise that they will "strike it rich." The truth is that, a single gambler's probability of winning anything at all is very very small.

For godsakes, let us stop legal gambling (especially via The State, e.g. 'lottery tickets' etc)

Even though it's not what I wanted, it's all useful information anyway. Thanks! You can draw some links to the gaming industry through gambling anyway because some games use a probability system where if you spend enough money you'll unbox a 'rare' item, all the while the majority of people have a good chance of getting something banal or useless in-game.