Video Games, Dystopia, and Neoliberalism: The Case of BioShock Infinite

Abstract

An ideological analysis of video games should include both the narrative and ludic dimensions, since there can be frictions between these two dimensions and they can even contradict one another. This article’s main aim is to analyze BioShock Infinite, an illustrative case study of these conflicts. On the one hand, it is a video game that portrays a dystopian narrative, aligning itself with this genre’s critical progressive tradition; on the other hand, its gameplay has an accentuated neoliberal bent. The analysis of BioShock Infinite also helps us to critically discuss certain trends in game design in contemporary mainstream video games that connect with and reinforce neoliberal values.

Beyond Rules and Mechanics: A Different Approach for Ludology

“…In this case, the concept does not refer to a "hole" that the player "must fill" in order to understand the text, but rather one that the player "can fill" in a nonexclusive manner and without coercion by any designer, or even as a subversion of the limits that the designer could set. This theory would set the bases for a challenging debate about the limits of discourse and interpretation in video games (Ferri, 2013;Pérez-Latorre, 2015;Pérez-Latorre & Oliva, 2017).…”

“…Since then, ludology has developed as a discipline that observes the universal systematization of the factors involved in video games, be it in the more general concepts (Elverman & Aarseth, 2007;Eskelinen, 2001;Hunickle, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004;Juul, 2003) or more specifically in genre studies (Järvinen, 2008;King & Krzywinska, 2002;Pérez-Latorre, 2011), as well as in the scope of discourse analyses (Consalvo & Dutton, 2006;Malliet, 2007;Pérez-Latorre, 2015;Pérez-Latorre & Oliva, 2017). These highly valuable approaches have, however, ignored a possibly more fundamental perspective, that is, one that focuses on the elementary relations of function in a cognitive sense that make interactions in a game device possible.…”

Play, History and Politics: Conceiving Futures Beyond Empire

“…There is also game scholarship that takes the notion of utopia to task in itself, often framed around the analysis of the Bioshock (2007) series. The Bioshock games focus on intensified notions of political ideologies from the real world hybridised with hyperbolic visions of capitalist consumption habits (see Nyman & Teten, 2018; Pérez-Latorre & Oliva, 2017; Schulzke, 2014). The only thing to be wary of is when our imaginaries of the future are themselves stultifying and we are left without energy or investment to move forward.…”

The Sacred & the Digital

“…Infinite refrains from taking a critical stance on mainstream religion; it also is reluctant to position itself in the political debate it presents to the player. As mentioned above, the game depicts the workers' revolt against racist oppression as negatively as racist oppression itself, an attempt to withdraw from a political statement that could estrange either side of the argument (Alexander 2014;Smith 2016;Pérez-Latorre and Oliva 2017). Religion is simply another cultural dimension which is openly depicted in the game but with an attitude that seeks to avoid any conflict with a possible audience.…”