How do you feel about the portrayal of Communism in video games?

Please for the sake of Communism delete your My Little Pony videos.

Bretty good, fam.

Okay look.

Those videos have a ton of views and people keep going back to watch them. I'm giving the people what they want! All it is is a soundtrack anyway. Maybe I could unlist them but I'd feel bad if anyone wanted to watch them. Surely anyone who is that triggered by MLP is never gonna watch my videos anyway.

And dank u comrayde

I absolutely love games with factions that you can fuck around with. Reapers in Just Cause 2, Vox Populi in Bioshock Infinite, the PLAV in Mercenaries 2…

The furthest games typically go into politics is either
but also
It's pretty mind-numbing.

what games even go into communism, let alone go on about it in a negative way? All I can think about is the Civ series, where it basically says "communims is when da gubbamint does things and u dont own cars"

Not only its writing, the gameplay was fucking shit too.

Yeah, the level design in the first game was pretty cool to navigate and really plaid into the claustrophobic atmosphere. Infinite's basically just a series of uninspired straight lines.

What'd be some nice marxist concepts to explore in an adventure game without sounding too preachy/overt? I've been thinking about this for a while and I'm considering using some story elements ala as a metaphor for reification. Asking as an amateur indie gamedev.

I think the best way to convey a message is to make the interlocutor realize it himself by posing the right questions. This is true in videogames as in any other media.

It's not easy to find the right questions and a powerful way to present them, but the message will be that much stronger.

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I'd suggest you use a "historical" approach. Basically, don't deal directly with concepts but with history — your audience is more likely to be interested in world-changing historical events (like the industrial revolution) than in political-economic elaborations (private property, means of production and whatnot). That way your setting becomes your point. Of course, you don't need to stick to real events, you can make something entirely fictional — like, a game taking place on planet Mars in 2098 but where events modeled after the Enclosure.

I'd say the trick is to introduce those concepts without being explicitly socialist. Basically, don't use marxist terminology or mention anything about socialism. Pick something that strikes a note with people, something that normies can nod their head to. Alienation is a good one (especially contrasted with living a freer lifestyle, like Stardew Valley does), greedy capitalists is another good one (everyone has read Charles Dickens). Also what says. The message is always the strongest when the player connects the dots himself. It isn't easy to do that, mind you, but then again conveying a strong message is one of the hardest things in writing.
And shit, too. I'd ass that it's easier to convey a message subtly when it isn't a realistic setting. Even a hamfisted message might slide when your game is about cute aliens getting fucked over by capitalism and not modern day humans (see Oddworld). It's also easier to portray a communist society when you can pass it off as "worldbuilding" rather than "this is my vision of a future society".

Do you think Papers Please was Anti-Communist/Soviet?

Metro 2033 showed the Communist "Red Line" faction as pretty neutral and cool.

But in Metro Last Light they went away from the books and made then "evil"

Was Caesar's Legion actually Marxist, just starting from an earlier point than Russia did?

Why..?

I really fucking hate what capitalism has done to peoples conception of the world.

Historical materialism, I think, I don't know marx as well as a marxist would.
Like this image here, he was starting with noting but tribes, then conquered them to create a slaving empire, with the intention of transitioning to a feudal society rather quickly.

Plausible deniability idea: Upload more game OSTs, and if it's possible find some way to fudge the upload dates.
That way you can just say "Oh gosh no, I don't *like* MLP, I just felt that I should upload the music in-case someone else wanted to listen to it. I mean, I have the soundtrack for Crazy Bus uploaded and I've never eve actually played it."

Starting to think the defining trait of a social democrat is exerting more time trying to get away with lying than on political theory.

They wanted to be like the roman empire, so no.

Oh god no, but he's halfway between anarcho-primitivism and feudalism.

user, what on earth made you think Caesar's legion, with their slavery, imperialism, and servitude could possibly be Marxist?

I think he's joking, fam. Caesar's Legion is part inspired by Fascist Italy's WE WUZ ROHHMANZ AN SHIEET attitude, and learned characters outright say this.

In Skyrim, who was more Leftist.

The Imperials? Or the Stormcloaks?

who /spetnaz/ here?

youtube.com/watch?v=4zNkcIoDW-0

Anyone can fight for us, Skyrim is for all her people.
Skyrim is for the Nords!

both feudal trash

The reason why so many Ancoms are delusional 14 year old larping faggots is because the way communism is portrayed in vidya. They come off thinking communism is some kind "le edgy klub".

He mentioned dialectics and seems to be progressing intentionally and rapidly through (what I think is) the marxist view of historical development. I mean if he conquers the NCR fully he'd be able to just hijack a lot of their infrastructure and get capitalism within his lifetime. Maybe, I don't remember how old he is.

I was being as utopian as possible when I first stumbled into crude anarchism, not edgy.

how lol. Can you name a game that even goes remotely into communist philosophy, let alone a popular one?

How about you stop being fucking babies and just accept it?

Skyrim is for the nords seems more free palestine than manifest destiny. Except for the dark elves thing.

Ulfric Stormfront is not my comrade

Thats more for Nazis, Nazis are always seen as the bad guys with cool uniforms.

Most Neo-Nazis want to be edgy becasue they are always bad.

Yeah but going imperial makes me feel like an imperialist.

He's idpol trash

Accepted.

And going Stormcloak makes you feel like a nazi. Which is worse? They are both worse.

Bioshock Infinite, red orchestra, homefront, freedom fighters, world in conflict, and all the red faction games.

Both are spooked
Only by ignoring the main plotline can Khajiit make Skyrim his property.
Or as much of it as Khajiit can carry, anyway.

They should just retcon 'elswher', Khajiit backstory is pretty cool other than that

The Red Faction games are all really Leftist and I love them all.
youtube.com/watch?v=yicUyWHT8uY
Cappies BTFO

It's also the symbolism, and heraldry of the USSR. In high school there were many fat cringy autists wearing hammer and sickle shirts, they most likely ended up ancoms.

Captialism should be farthest left in that pic because control is handed over to "the market" so no people are actually in charge.

Is Vivec an egoist?

I never saw any hammer and sickle shirts growing up, but I would always see them being sold in the mall and stuff.

I knew a right wing libertarian girl that had a t-shirt with this on it, but she was being "ironic" about it.

A slave revolt with no mentions of communism or socialism, though they were apparently initially going to be anarchists.
Communism is barely discussed in the game, it's just soviets against nazis with the politics of both groups de-emphasized to avoid controversy.
North Koreans with scarce mentions of politics and pepperings of atrocities. Its cawadooty tier.
It's a parody of Red Dawn and red scare films. Not seeing how that can turn anyone into ancoms, or any ideology, considering how goofy it is.
Can't speak on it, haven't played it.
Closest one on the list tbh, though no mentions of socialism or communism beyond minor symbolism.

I don't see how any of these make people into ancoms when the communism begins and ends with a symbol or "its when da gubbermint does bad things and plans!". MLs, maybe, but not anarkids.

My feelings tell me vidya are a tool to keep people retarded.

here we go

It was anti-borders and anti-counter-terrorism-hysteria.

youtube.com/watch?v=m0MnueKIufQ

Call of Duty was so Antifa back in the day.
"The rotten cancer of the fascist reich ravages europe like a plague" Holy fuck that line is one hell of a way to start the Soviet story.

After Bioshock let you shoot a crapload of objectivist libertarian ancaps in the face and beat Ayn Rand head in with a golf club, Bioshock 2 let you do it to commies instead.

Rise Of Nations' Cold War campaign is fun.

Anyone can see the the entire point of Bioshock Infinite is /pols/ dreamland getting btfo by edglords who wear red and leave riddles. Teenage retards see this and want to be the real life equivalent, hence ancoms being retarded edglord faggots.

They talk about Les Misérables, and the "Vox Populi" are clearly are based on early American Socialist and Communist movments.
youtube.com/watch?v=8NmmNk4haLg
The theme song is cool too.

Now that I think about, Victoria 2 is literally using Marxist view of society with Landlords and Capitalists at the very top. Which you can either exterminate or abolish should the commies come to power.

Find me another series as woke as Oddworld.

In Bioshock 2 you hear how Sofia Lamb is using the ideals of Christianity to implement Socialist ideals in Rapture.
In one of the audio logs you even has a guy saying: "Did the Preacher grow his beard for Jesus Christ or Karl Marx." Somthing like that.

Nostalgia
Underrated as fuck too.

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There's literally nothing woke about the mudokons user.

Fun RTS. Didn't realize there was a cold war campaign. Might replay.

bioshock infinite's writing is so goddamn infuriating. it had so much potential to explore racism and classism but instead did the liberal maybe the answer is in the middle/extremism of anysort is bad bullshit. and then half way through it abandons even that to try to halfass link itself to bioshock 1 through dimensional travel retardation.

Red Alert 1, 2 and 3.

Soviets were my favourite faction.

Yeah they try to "modernize" socialism with that shitty idpol stuff.

This image is a crude distortion of Marxism and human history in general.

Gave me fucking cancer.

they don't even try to modernize with idpol stuff. they flat out go they kill people so they are also bad in a game where you gun down 50 cops in the first level.

I have read very little marx in comparison to anarchists.

I remember being pretty let down that the skylines didn't let you really explore a massive floating city, and just linked from one set piece to the next.

Tropico has some Communism in it.

But its more as a joke.

when I was as utopian as possible, I was a saint-simonist

anprims vs ancaps: the game

Thanks lads, really appreciated. Will keep all of this in mind. Polite sage.

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I am always puzzled how "no gods, no kings, only men" is somehow an ancap slogan instead of a communist slogan.

It's both, Andrew Ryan is a parody of Ayn Rand.

Maybe in the original version that was written out.
youtube.com/watch?v=muJYTeQlvC4

"No Gods or Kings, Only Man" basically is the motto of classical liberalism.

But you still got king, you just call them boss.

Liberals are not exactly known for introspection

i don't play shit games so various degrees of socialism/communism/post-scarcity has been the default state of living in nearly all video games i played.
most basic example: age of empires

ofc there are economic simulation games which are awesome as fuck and turned me into a capitalist pig.
now i support the pirate party idea of capitalism with basic income.

That was pretty cool, maybe I need to replay that game. Been a long time.

Wrong. It was the slogan of classical libetarianism, which was basically just a nice word for anarchism.
American right wingers coopted the word.

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Stupid and ahistoric, many liberals were as opposed to wage slavery as chattel slavery, were anti-corporate because it trampeled their belief in the natural rights of man, and early liberal thinkers are clearly the basis for marx's critique of capital such as smith and ricardo.

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Any political connotation in video games that isn't neoliberal status quo endorsement is unthinkable because games have a negative connotation that isn't shared by TV, movies, etc. Any non-mainstream view in a popular game is going to be slandered as "the commies are brainwashing muh kidz". Even games with social commentary have to shut their mouths instead of offering solutions to dilemmas.

The only exception is MGS because Westerners are too fucked in the head to even comprehend different points of view, so people just think it's fun insane babbling.

I don't really agree, I think it's more that video games are relentlessly corporate and focus-grouped into oblivion to remove any sales-harming elements, which is present in other mediums yes, but in movies for example the star of the show is the director who can get controversial stuff that he personally wants to include into the project by virtue of his name and 'trust me, I'm an award winner' past the suits, but in gaming, the suits are the ultimate bosses. This is why the bad guys in almost all AAA action games are generically evil fascists or theocrats or terrorists, and the good guys are always bland generic liberals (ie. Just Cause 3 which I'm playing now, where the Rebels are clearly inspired by leftist movements but have been scrubbed clean of any politics whatsoever beyond opposition to the cartoonish dictator and are just assumed to be moral).

the real answer: skyrim fucking sucks

too bad its hipster trash

What is this?

leftism and furries, i'm sold

Night in the woods

It isn't really leftist

Big Boss was just a reference to Tito

Bioshock 2 had religious fundamentalists, they weren't explicitly anti-capitalist at all.

Kinda yes and no.

It just shows normal life of the everyday worker.

When you get the the "War" chapter, the NPC Communists have some really cool convo's why they joined the Red Line.

They were just normal working class guys.

Better then how they were shown in Last Light.

But it is though. Kojima is a massive hack who just steals shit from other media.

Hello, it's Marxist Media again, is anyone interested in proofing/giving feedback on my scripts for me? I have one for Neocolonialism 3/4 done, it's about 1100 words right now.