cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/7643915
As always in capitalism, video games have largely deformed from an art form into just another means to generate profit for large corporations
“The love of money is the root of all kinds of enshitification.” --Jesus Christ (Probably)
Pretty much.
"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24).
God I’d love some money.
Everything is inherently political when you really boil it down.
Politics is a branch of philosophy about how societies should be governed. If you want to make a social commentary that is non political, you would have to avoid mentioning how society is or should be run. Also, how people should organise together.
Where I would love to see micro-transactions be a thing is news articles, videos, and other creative works. I’m happy to pay for someone’s work, especially if I’m not paying a bunch of overhead to some shitting credit card company. At the same time, I have no wish to pay for a $20 monthly subscription for the local newspaper in Middleofnowhere, Montana just so I can read one article.
I think a lot of Eastern European socialist states had ton of bribes (or sometimes “gifts”) to get anything done, including in some places “gifts” to your doctor.
Unfortunately Marx didn’t eliminate all the micro transactions
Or you had a friend who worked at the store or the factory and could get you stuff because they liked you. A hundred friends could get you further than a hundred roubles.
I’ve heard that too. Connections being everything. I think those “you help me I help you” is sorta like micro transactions too.
Whoa whoa whoa, are you posting a meme that’s tangentially political to the Marxist Leninist meme community?
I’m a capitalist shill and this offends me because it challenges my worldview and I don’t like that.
Bollocks, any decent game needs a fuck ton of capital to develop
Please share all the greatest communist games
Agree that loot boxes suck, they are gambling, not gaming
Edit. Yes, Tetris. One game made in 1985. Brilliant example Tankards.
So the score so far for games made:
Communism - 1
Capitalism - 831,000
Tetris enters the chat
Which was only successful because it got licensed to Western software companies.
Yeah it being an incredibly addictive universally approachable game has nothing to do with it being widely played for over 40 years… 🙄
Psst. Almost 40 years. Tetris was released in 1985 not 1983
This comment brought to you by an old fuck that doesn’t need to be artificially aged to be even older
You know that copyright export was illegal under the Soviets though yeah? So it only got released because a UK software sales guy faxed them a contract and they didn’t realise it was binding
Robert Stein, an international software salesman for the London-based firm Andromeda Software, saw the game’s commercial potential during a visit to Hungary in June 1986.[18]: 302 [25]: 11 min After an indifferent response from the Academy,[25]: 12 min Stein contacted Pajitnov and Brjabrin by fax to obtain the license rights.[25]: 11 min The researchers expressed interest in forming an agreement with Stein via fax, but they were unaware that this fax communication could be considered a legal contract in the Western world;[26] Stein began to approach other companies to produce the game.[17]: 89–90
Stein approached publishers at the 1987 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gary Carlston, co-founder of Broderbund, retrieved a copy and brought it to California. Despite enthusiasm amongst its employees, Broderbund remained skeptical because of the game’s Soviet origins. Likewise, Mastertronic co-founder Martin Alper declared that “no Soviet product will ever work in the Western world”.[17]: 90
Stein ultimately signed two agreements: he sold the European rights to the publisher Mirrorsoft,[17]: 90 [27] and the American rights to sister company Spectrum HoloByte.[28] The latter obtained the rights after a visit to Mirrorsoft by Spectrum HoloByte president Phil Adam in which he played Tetris for two hours.[17]: 90 [25]: 15 min At that time, Stein had not yet signed a contract with the Soviet Union.[27] Nevertheless, he sold the rights to the two companies for £3,000 and a royalty of 7.5 to 15% on sales
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris
Would be kind of hard to play a game that didn’t get published by the evil capitalist lol
No it wouldn’t. Tetris was going to get played by millions whether someone licensed it or not. That’s why there was such a mad scramble to land a deal.
Please explain copyright export licensing under Soviet Union rules
You don’t need licensing to copy that floppy. That’s what your mind can’t grasp.
Because capitalism was the first time money existed lol
What? Are you saying the video game industry predates capitalism? Lol
Minecraft
Terraria
Astrox Imperium (this is a single player version of EvE Online, so definitely not for everyone)
Dyson Sphere Program
Factorio
UFO:AI (admittedly this is a FOSS XCOM game that started as a clone of XCOM Apocalypse, and morphed into something bigger)
All developed by either a single person, or tiny teams with basically no start up capital. I’m sure I can find more, since the FOSS list of games is enormous.
Labor develops society. Capital enshittifies society.
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A few (good and one time buy) games off the top of my head (is that how you use the expression/idiom?):
Obviously commie games:
- Disco Elysium
- Cruelty Squad
Might or might not be commie, but definitely progressive:
- Bioshock series
honourable mentions:
- Vitoria 3 (who would have thought that a democratically controlled and publicly owned economy would be meta? does have a nasty dlc policy tho)
- Partisans 1941 (you play the story of soviet partisans on the eastern front, what more is there to say?)
- everything from the studio “Kremlingames” (they make political sims about eastern block countries, without glorifying them)
- Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic (eastern block “City: Skylines”)
- VA-11 Hall-A (good vn in a cyberpunk dystopia, does not rly have a political theme tho iirc)
Disco Elysium
Capital doesn’t cease to exist under communism, guy. It just stops being controlled by one person.
Yes, it gets mismanaged by central government
👏…👏…👏
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Using everything that happened in the 20th century as evidence, no mystery. There’s good governance and bad management. Just one is more effective overall.
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Cave Story
If you’re not trolling you’re stupid af
Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks
