What Video Games Get Wrong (And Right) About Capitalism

Comments · 725

• NE

  @nevs0917 · 1 year ago

  On the lack of organized labor in Cyberpunk. I've already seen some comments giving examples. I'd like to add that there is also news coverage of a dock worker strike. The news coverage mentions unionizing is illegal and that the strikers will soon be killed by Arasaka security forces. There's a more high profile example though: the Mox. They're portrayed as a gang but in effect are a highly weaponized and militarized sex worker union in a world that requires that of them. And their characterization as a gang isn't weird as the previously mentioned dock worker's union is also characterized as such in the news report.

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• RI

  @RichMerry · 1 year ago

  "Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next product" - Jay Bauman

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• RE

  @redskared8093 · 1 year ago

  My favorite line about capitalism from Disco Elysium is when Joyce comments on critiques of capitalism. How capitalism subsumes everything, and critiques only end up reinforcing it instead. Its bleak and from what I've seen since then, its true.

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• TR

  @TribuneAquila · 1 year ago (edited)

  There are shards you can find in cyberpunk talking about unions and how they're essentially synonymous with criminality allowing corporations to either use the npcd directly as enforcers or wipe them out directly

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• TH

  @ThePineWizard-numbers · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQLIQ57uvSI&amp;t=590">9:50</a> unions are obviously gone. Killed off (literally) by corporations. &nbsp;Erased to such a degree that people agree to work on horrific terms which more closely represent the slavery than anything else (if you find any contracts or ads for corpos hiring people). Quite an obvious question

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• FL

  @flufftronix · 1 year ago

  Well. yes, liberalism benefits a whole lot from the viewpoint that art and ideas are what really change the world, not collective struggle. But it&apos;s not just collective struggle that&apos;s kneecapped by this framing. Turning art (as in, artistic creations of culture) into objects of investment--whether that&apos;s paintings or game studios or whatever else--is also an attack on folk art (as in, pretty simplistically, art for the people by the people) and an attack on art&apos;s place everywhere other than in galleries, museums, and investment portfolios. Including art&apos;s presence as a component to every and any political struggle.

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• MA

  @maiaemmett2399 · 1 year ago

  Disco Elysium was actually, factually, that hard line marxist leninist writing you described. It was written by MLs with that philosophy as an important lens they were writing thought. Like this isn&apos;t to get into the question if that was a good thing or not or if they&apos;re right or not, just saying that like that is in fact the base philosophy they are working with and that is in line with their political leanings. That game was written by that sort of communist, explicitly.

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• CA

  @CassienotClover · 1 year ago (edited)

  I would argue that the quest line with Judy attacking Clouds is also Union adjacent, while they never outright say the word, Judy literally unites the dolls at Clouds to try to take over from the Tiger Claws so that they can have better working conditions. The game&apos;s message is pretty clear considering no matter what you do the dolls get fucked over in the end.

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• GO

  @goosewithagibus · 1 year ago

  Trying to get people to &quot;see&quot; capitalism has proven to be one of the most braincell draining exercises I have ever engaged in. People often are incredibly adverse to seeing the world around them. Like really <b>seeing</b> it. Gets real frustrating real fast cause they act like you&apos;re a lunatic for talking about how the system demonstrably works .

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• BI

  @biocapsule7311 · 1 year ago

  The problem is the way &apos;Capitalism&apos; won the current battle, by convincing the world that Capitalism and Economy are the same thing, when it&apos;s not. <b>Economy is economy,</b> there are fundamentals that every economy &apos;theories&apos; have to follow, it exist before people put pen to paper and codify what is whatever &apos;ism&apos;. I once seen a comment saying &apos;he doesn&apos;t want Communism, he just want stringent regulations&apos;. Without ever realizing that every ideological systems about economy are stringent regulations, towards very specific purpose. Economy is the sandbox, the &apos;ism&apos; are the merely the method you choose to play. Western right-wing narrative convince people that anything they don&apos;t consider &apos;capitalism&apos; are somehow a completely alien way of thinking and therefore has no place in economy, when really, they are all about improving economy.

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• KR

  @krishiii876 · 1 year ago

  To answer the union question. If you watch the news in your apartment, they mention that the worker union was met with deadly force and submitted to the corporation as a result. They were also labeled as terrorists.

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• BJ

  @bjamoliver · 1 year ago

  Check out Citizen Sleeper. The sequel is releasing soon. It&apos;s a great indie title where you find refuge on a dystopian space station trying to survive by navigating exploitative systems designed to dehumanise and discard you, literally. But it isn&apos;t completely fatalistic like Cyberpunk as even among the decay, the game highlights stories of mutual aid and collective resistance, showing that people can endure even under the heel of unchecked greed.

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