Whilst the validity of narrative in
videogames has been contested by academics, ethics, ideologies, and politics
have become familiar features of videogame criticism as a growing number of
videogame designers experiment with the medium.
These games present a player with situations that ‘represent how real
and imagined systems work’ (Bogost 2007,
xi)
and allow her the potential for the ‘change [of] fundamental attitudes and
beliefs about the world, leading to potentially significant long-term social
change’ (Bogost 2007,
xi) . Author and game designer Ian Bogost suggests
that ‘videogames open a new domain for persuasion, thanks to their core representational
mode, procedurality’ (Bogost 2007,
xi)
and it is this that allows the videogame player to actively investigate a
particular rhetorical position and to form her own opinions of it, rather than
being presented with an ideological standpoint, as is traditionally the
case. Procedural rhetoric, as Bogost
labels it, is ‘the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and
interactions (Bogost 2007,
xi)
and is reliant on the ability of the videogame to include the player as part of
the execution of a narrative, or game, as a physically active participant.
The
presentation of rhetoric in videogames can be found in many types of game, not
just the narrative driven games that are to be primarily discussed in this
chapter. Bogost cites the game Animal Crossing, an ‘animal village
simulator’ (Bogost 2008,
117)
as an example of videogame rhetoric; this game, he argues, ‘simulates the
social dynamics of a small town, complete with the material demands of keeping
up with the Joneses’ (Bogost 2008,
119)
complete with an economic system that allows
the player to understand supply and demand, long-term debt, and ‘the
repetition of mundane work necessary to support contemporary material property
ideals’ (Bogost 2008,
119) . The popular Facebook game, Farmville (Zynga 2009) , is also based
on economic principles, with the player engaging in farm management, including
growing crops, animal husbandry, as well as cooperation, throung trading with
other players. Whilst these ‘casual
games’[1]
can be played by young children (Bogost uses his own five year old son as an
example of a player of Animal Crossing),
there is a sophisticated rhetoric at play within the game, the player is part
of ‘a full consumer regimen’ (Bogost 2008, 118) , which leads to an economic
understanding of wealth and its distribution, as well as sophisticated, yet often
unnoticed mathematical principles.
More
recognisable to the narrative driven videogame, is the representation of
ideologies, both ethical and political as part of the games construction. Early videogames, due to technological
restrictions, were concerned primarily with ludology; that is the playing of
the game. As the medium has matured, there
have been a growing number of games that use narrative and ludology concurrently
to examine rhetorical issues within a fictional, and safe[2],
environment. This scrutiny can take many
forms and cover a variety of themes: Deux
Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal 2011) interrogates
trans-humanism, for example, whilst the Mass
Effect (Bioware 2007 - 2012) trilogy
considers inter-racial cooperation, through the lens of an interspecies
mirror. Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream 2010) takes a more personal
approach, placing the player in the role of a father, who must break ethical
and moral constraints in the pursuit of a kidnapped child, prompting the
question, ‘How far would you go to save someone you love?’ — the game’s tagline (IMDB 2010) . However, the most famous example of a
videogame to use procedural rhetoric is Bioshock (2K Games 2007) , which places the
player in a specific ideological environment, and then asks her to question her
actions, her motives, and the information she receives as she plays the game.
A Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys: Political Ideology in Bioshock
Bioshock (2K Games 2007) offers
a ludological adaptation of the philosophy of the philosophy of Objectivism, as
portrayed in the novel Atlas Shrugged (Rand 2007) written by
Russian born author Ayn Rand, considering the novel in relation to Rand’s
philosophy and criticism, as well as offering a critique of the novel itself. The interactive elements of Bioshock play a direct role in the
understanding of the novel and Rand’s philosophy, especially her understanding
of free will; the game is filled with references to the novel and, more widely,
to Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, on which the novel is based. This is achieved through direct references,
symbolism, and aesthetic allusions within the landscape. Predominantly a first-person shooter game
(FPS), in which the player controls a character, Jack, as he seeks to escape
the underwater city, Rapture[3],
Bioshock is concerned primarily with
the destruction of enemies, ranging from splicers (humans addicted to ADAM[4])
to the antagonist of the game, Frank Fontaine.
Alongside this, however, Bioshock
provides a critique of Rand’s philosophy via its landscape and dual narrative:
that of the game: the search for and the destruction of Andrew Ryan and Frank
Fontaine, and that of the destruction of the City of Rapture.
Originally published in
1957, Atlas Shrugged is a premeditated
vehicle for Rand to articulate her philosophy of Objectivism. This philosophy, she explained in 1962, holds
that facts are facts, regardless of the wishes, hopes, or feelings of man; it
also maintains that reason is man’s[5]
only source of knowledge, his only means of perceiving reality, and his basic
means of survival. It also teaches that
man must exist for his own sake, a quality that she describes as selfishness in
which he must put his own interests above all others, but must not do this to
the detriment of any other. The fourth
tenet of objectivism describes the political system that this philosophy
breeds; that of laissez-faire
capitalism, described as
a
system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as
masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual
benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by
resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force
against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s
rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who
initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full
capitalism, there should be […] a complete separation of state and economics,
in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. (Ayn Rand
Institute 1962)
Rand believed that altruism—putting the needs of
others before one’s own—was inherently wrong and her fiction is a deliberate
attempt to demonstrate this philosophy and to highlight what she believed to be
a fundamental truth: that altruism would lead to the downfall of society. In Atlas
Shrugged, Rand charts the decline and fall of alternate version of the United
States becoming dystopian through its extreme socialist ideology; she also
presents an alternative to this, in the form of Galt’s Gulch, a small, isolated
community comprised of those people who believe in her philosophy.
The juxtaposition of the narrative
and the ludology is important in Bioshock;
the two elements of the game are reliant on each other to create a
representational fictional form, such as those described by Kendall Walton in Mimesis as Make-believe (Walton 1990) . The gameplay is constructed within the
narrative: Rapture is the play arena of the game; the player explores the city
to find and destroy the splicers in order to reach Ryan (and later Fontaine)
and to escape Rapture. Without Rapture
and the narrative structure, Grant Tavinor notes, there would be no game. (Tavinor 2009) . Clint Hocking disagrees with this, instead
claiming that the game offers the player two contracts, a ludic contract and a
narrative contract. Hocking sees these
two as being mutually exclusive, in that the narrative contract is at odds with
the ludic contract, creating what he coins ‘ludonarrative dissonance,’ ‘forcing
the player to either abandon the game […] or simply accept that the game cannot
be enjoyed both as a game and a story’ (Hocking 2007) .
What Hocking sees as ludonarrative dissonance, however, is an integral
part of the games questioning of free will, both for Jack and for the
player.
Would you Kindly…
Throughout
the first part of the game, the player is given guidance from a character known
as Atlas, who prefaces his requests with the phrase ‘would you kindly’, as he
leads the player through Rapture via a one way radio. Partway through the game, the player is led
to the office of Andrew Ryan, to kill him in revenge for the murder of Atlas’
wife and child, and it is at this point that a number of critical events take
place that question Jack’s role in the game, and the narrative First, the game takes away all control from
the player, rendering her a passive observer of events in a game notably devoid
of cut-scenes and reveals that the phrase ‘would you kindly’ has been part of
the mental conditioning of Jack and that he is programmed to obey any order
preceded with this phrase. This
revelation comes not only as a shock to Jack, but to the player as well. When asked about this, a group of players
responded in the majority that the repeated use of the phrase was not noticed,
or that if it was noticed, it was considered part of Atlas character rather
than an indication of a sinister purpose (Facepunch.com 2009) . The phrase, which seems to be innocuous until
this point, instead begins to ‘inspire a retroactive horror’ in the player (Bossche 2009) as she is shown a montage of examples of this
conditioning, from the opening scene (Figure 1 & 2) to the ‘present’ of the
game, illustrating that this has taken place whilst the player has been controlling
Jack, and that all the events to date have been devised and carried out with
Jack operating as a pawn who must obey the instructions of a higher power. It also becomes clear that the game is
addressing the player and questioning her relationship with videogames.
 |
| Figure 1 |
 |
| Figure 2 |
Videogames are teleological; that is, all the events
and actions are purposefully designed to work towards an ending; even games
that are part of a franchise, such as Assassin’s
Creed (Ubisoft Games 2007 - 2013) or the Mass Effect trilogy, use this
teleological construction, with each ‘episode’ having an ending of its own, as
well as being part of the larger structure.
This in turn makes the concept of free will in videogames problematic,
as they are predominantly presented as a finished form, with an ending already
in place, fully authored by a game design company. The player is not offered free will at any
point in any game, she is merely conforming to a set of predetermined events
that dictate her actions, even if she is offered the ability to make choices (Beirne 2012) . Bioshock
exploits this determinism through the revelation that Jack has been designed to
obey the commands of Atlas, whilst refusing the player the ability to influence
this and forcing the realisation, in the player that there is no freedom in
videogames: each story has already been written and the player cannot influence
that story, despite the game intimating the ability to do so.
Whilst the player is in the role of observer, during
the passivity of the cut-scene, Jack kills Ryan, who makes no attempt to defend
himself, his death proving that Jack has been the subject of mental
conditioning, with Ryan taunting him repeatedly with ‘A man chooses. A slave obeys’ as Jack hits him. Despite Hocking’s assertion that the
narrative asks the player to ‘help Atlas and you will progress’ (Hocking 2007) and is thereby a
failure to conform to Objectivist principles, the game does not present a
scenario as simple as this; at face value, the two men are working towards a
mutually beneficial outcome, perfectly acceptable in Randian philosophy as a
trade by two men ‘who earn what [they] get and do not give or take the
undeserved’ (Rand 2007, 1022) . It is only when it is revealed that Jack has
not been operating through free will that this changes, and it becomes evident
that Atlas has been acting for his own benefit, and that Jack’s role is that of
a puppet as he makes his way through Rapture.
Rapture
As
the player and Jack travel down to Rapture in a bathysphere[6], the
graphical abilities of game machines are shown to the player, through the first
views of the city (Figure 2), whilst a voiceover tells the player that Rapture was
born from Andrew Ryan’s dissatisfaction with American left wing politics in the
Second World War, and finding that there was no place for ‘men who believed
that work was sacred and property rights inviolate’ (Fuller 2007, 42) decided to create
one, following John Galt’s lead, as he created Galt’s Gulch as a place where
man ‘hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem’ (Rand 2007, 1018) in a society that requires
a producer[7]
or entrepreneur to be both immolated to society and to accept this as fair and
just[8]. Both settings adhere to the policies of
Rand’s philosophy, and the freedom that provides for the inhabitants. However, where Galt’s Gulch remains utopian,
Rapture instead becomes dystopian, the freedom of the inhabitants to do as they
wish engendering a society of inhabitants addicted to the drug ADAM, and its
derivative EVE.[9] Grant Tavinor considers that the ‘visual
impact of Bioshock […] is striking’
and that the game ‘draws on the architectural motifs and cultural themes of
1930s and 1940s America […] to provide a coherent artistic statement’ (Tavinor 2009, 91) and this setting
provides the backdrop for two stories in the game, that combine to produce a
narrative, one of the city itself, and the other of the protagonist, Jack and
his attempts to escape Rapture.
Figure 3: 'Aerial' view of
Rapture
For
the reader familiar with Atlas Shrugged, Rapture
is instantly recognisable as a representation of Ayn Rand’s utopia. Most obviously, both are hidden from the majority
of the world; Rapture through its immersion in the sea, and Galt’s Gulch by
refractor rays in a remote valley in the US.
More closely signalling the relationship between the two is the presence
of Rand’s ideology. Andrew Ryan of
Rapture created his city to be a place ‘where the artist would not fear the
censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the
great would not be constrained by the small.’
Rand uses Galt’s Gulch as an example of a perfect society, founded on
individual freedom and where the Government serve as a police service, ensuring
that business and individual alike are law-abiding.
Beyond this initial indicator, there are a number of
specific references to the title of Rand’s novel in Bioshock. During the opening
sequence of the game, for example, the player crashes near a lighthouse in the
middle of the ocean and the doors to the lighthouse are decorated with a frieze
of Atlas holding the world (Figure 3).
Further in the game, the player also comes across a statue of Atlas
holding up the world and there are many statues reminiscent of these through
the game, men with their hands stretching upwards to the sky.
Figure 3: Atlas holding up
the world.
There are several other signals in the game to point
to this relationship; the protagonists of both the game and the novel discover
this hidden community through crashing a plane, and there are ‘Easter eggs[10]’
that reveal Rand’s face in photographs (Figure 3), leaving little doubt that
Levine used Rand’s fiction in this game, and that he used Bioshock to comment on it, critiquing the practical implementation
of her philosophy (just as Rand herself did in Atlas Shrugged through the Twentieth-Century Motor Company and the
famous slogan From each according to his
ability, to each according to his need, popularised by Marx in 1875), all
pointing to the importance of the setting of the game as a critical exploration
of Rand’s philosophy.
Figure 4: Ayn Rand Easter
Egg
Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture, is
a key figure in Bioshock. The narrative indicates that Ryan fled the
USSR in 1919 for the USA and, after becoming increasingly disillusioned by US
politics, built Rapture in order to house the Atlases[11] of
the world, ‘men who refused to say yes to the parasites[12] and
the doubters. 'Men who believed that work was sacred and property rights inviolate’
(Fuller 2007, 37) . Ryan’s character shares some biographical
links with Rand; she fled the USSR during the rise of Communism, eventually
settling in the US, where she wrote her novels (Ayn Rand
Institute 2013) .
Ryan and Rand also share the same
attitude to religion; Rand is open about her views on religion, believing that
religion and ‘Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the
negation of reason’ (Ayn Rand Institute 2013) and Bioshock shows Ryan to have similar
views; throughout his city, banners proclaim that there are ‘No Gods or Kings,
Only Man’ (Figure 3) and religious paraphernalia has to be smuggled into
Rapture to be enjoyed by the residents. In
naming Ryan, the game designers were explicitly linking the character to Ayn
Rand—a masculine version of the novelists name.
Figure 5: No Gods or
Kings. Only Man
Andrew Ryan is representative of John
Galt, one of the three protagonists of Atlas
Shrugged, despite spending much
of the novel being called ‘The Destroyer.’
It is he that takes away the brightest minds from the world and gives
them the individual freedom to follow their own passions in Galt’s Gulch, with
no restrictions. Ryan’s utopia is the
same as Galt’s: a place where a man can
be free from censorship and governmental restrictions to use his skills, and
Ryan offers a similar freedom. As well
as this, Ryan stands for similar characters of the novel, collectively known as
‘thinkers’, and can be seen through Ryan’s speeches and public addresses. At one point Ryan details how
I
once bought a forest. The parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and
demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand
slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise ‘earned’. When
Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground’ (Fuller
2007, 18)
This
closely mirrors the actions of oil baron Ellis Wyatt at the end of the first
part of Atlas Shrugged (Rand, 2007, p.336); When forced to give the majority of his
(pre-tax) revenue to the government because he is ‘best able to bear the brunt
of the national emergency’ (Rand, 2007, p334), and still being expected to
maintain his employee levels and other costs, sets fire to his entire oil field
and disappears, rather than comply with this government directive.
It appears at first, that Andrew
Ryan represents the failure of the Randian ideology at work in Bioshock, as critics such as Joseph
Packer consider (Packer 2010) to be the case. As detailed, Ryan represents the
‘thinkers’ in Atlas Shrugged, choosing
to leave the world, and to join like-minded people, 'men who believed that work
was sacred and property rights inviolate’ (Fuller 2007, 37) to bring to fruition the utopian space
that Atlas Shrugged promises;
however, this Utopia is flawed and by the time the player enters the story,
Ryan’s rule has taken on a number of dystopian characteristics. As the narrative is uncovered, the player
discovers that Ryan, initially, allowed free rein to entrepreneurs and free
will to the inhabitants of Rapture, believing that there would be economic
self-regulation, as Objectivism preaches.
However, when his position as ruler of Rapture is threatened, he begins
creating laws contrary to Objectivist policy, leading to a power struggle that
culminates in the New Year’s Eve battle and destruction of Rapture, as well as
the apparent failure of Objectivism as a practical ideology.
Even with Rapture in ruins and the Utopian experiment
failed, Ryan still adheres to the principles of Objectivism and to one of the
clearest themes found in Rand’s fiction – that of the sanction of the victim[13]. According to Rand’s ideology, the sanction of
the victim is ‘the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil,
to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the “sin” of creating values’
(Binswanger, 2011). It is at this point
Ryan reveals that the protagonist is the product of mental conditioning and has
had the phrase ‘would you kindly’ implanted as a trigger for mental control.
Furthermore, Ryan chooses to die in order to try to break Jack’s conditioning,
citing it as an example of free will: ‘A man chooses. A slave obeys’ (Fuller
2007, 35) . In killing Ryan, Jack proves that he is
nothing more than a slave; the words ‘would you kindly’ triggering and
enforcing this servitude. Free will is
one of Ryan’s original principles for the city, as an audio file reveals: ‘Free
will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is
abhorrent’ (Fuller 2007, 22) .
John Galt is similarly willing to face death as long as his principles
are not compromised; in Atlas Shrugged,
Galt almost welcomes torture and pain, going so far as to instruct the
governmental aggressors in how to fix their broken torture machine so they
could resume their cruelty, but refuses to compromise his principles in order
to appease the government who want him to save them. The premise on which the ‘looters’ in Atlas Shrugged depend is the same mental
conditioning as Jack is subject to, albeit less explicitly. This is foregrounded in the novel with the
statement ‘You’ll always produce […]. You can’t help it. It’s in your blood. Or, to be more scientific: you’re conditioned
that way’ (Rand 2007, 984-985) .
It is at this point in the novel that Hank Rearden, presented with this
knowledge, ‘opts out’ of American society and becomes a member of Galt’s Gulch.
At this point in the game, it seems clear that Bioshock is showing Objectivism in a
negative light, with Andrew Ryan’s utopia in ruins showing that this ideology
has failed. It is here also that Atlas
is revealed to be Frank Fontaine, Andrew Ryan’s competitor, and Ryan’s position
as antagonist is questioned, as well as the premise that the political ideology
he represents is adverse to human wellbeing.
It is also here that the game is exposed as not just a criticism of
Objectivism, but rather a more rounded critique, using Fontaine as the basis
for this.
Frank
Fontaine is a gangster who challenges the rule of Andrew Ryan in Rapture, known
in the first part of the game as the amiable figure Atlas. During the first part of the game, until his
true identity is revealed, Atlas appears to be a familiar figure in videogames:
a character who gives advice and instructions to the player to allow her to complete
the tasks that comprise the game. The
revelation that this amiable character is Frank Fontaine, who has faked his own
death in order to take power from Ryan through the mental conditioning of Jack,
so he could murder Andrew Ryan, is designed to shock the player and to once
again call them to question what they are being told within a game. Here, the role of the player and the
identification the player has with a game becomes foregrounded, as considered
in chapter 2[14].
During the first part of the game, whilst unwittingly
helping Frank Fontaine kill Andrew Ryan, the player is shown Ryan’s Utopia as a
failed endeavour; Atlas relates how he brought his wife and son to Rapture for
a better life, but quickly became disillusioned, as it became clear that there
was a Marxist class divide developing and that ‘Ryan's […] up in Fort Frolic
banging fashion models; we're down in this dump yanking guts out of fish’ (Fuller
2007, 16) . Atlas openly blames Ryan for the
deterioration and destruction of Rapture, saying, ‘He’s the one who built this
place, and he’s the one who run it into the ground’ (Fuller 2007, 11) . At this point in the game, the player has no
reason to doubt Atlas’s words, and Ryan’s actions appear to validate this. Once unmasked as Fontaine, this along with
the rest of Atlas’s words are called into question; the likeable Irishman was a
fiction, making the player question whether Ryan is the megalomaniac that he
has been portrayed as being.
As a character, Fontaine/Atlas
should be the perfect objectivist; his ethics are based in self-interest,
valuing his own happiness and success above all others, initially earning Ryan’s
admiration and respect as a fellow Objectivist.
However, he also personifies several negative aspects of humanity, being
manipulative and dishonest in his dealings with others, undermining the principles
of objectivism[15]
and a fair society, under the guise of freeing the inhabitants of Rapture from
the tyranny of Ryan, thereby calling into question the practical implementation
of objectivism. The narrative details
how Fontaine becomes a figurehead for the underclass to revolt, in a clearly
Marxist reference to the overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat. Atlas cites Ryan filling Rapture with the
best of society as a failing in the City, as there is no-one to carry out the menial
work that needs to be done (Fuller 2007, 39) and that the divide between the rich
and poor is the fault of Ryan’s political agenda. After the death of Ryan, the game shows Frank
Fontaine as the primary antagonist, placing Andrew Ryan in the role of the victim
rather than the antagonist role he has held, and calling into question the
supposition that this is a world that portrays the failings of Objectivism,
which then opens the player (and Jack) to the notion that is is Fontaine who
brings about the downfall of Rapture, investing twelve years in planning and
initiating the downfall of Ryan, calling it a ‘long con’ (Fuller 2007, 47) and replacing the
Objectivist ideology with a bastardised form of Marxism[16],
resulting in ‘violence, crime, and disrepair replacing the peaceful efficiency
Rand attributes to Galt’s Gulch’ (Packer
2010, 215) . More symbolically, the role of the monster is
given to Frank Fontaine (Figure 3), showing him, as ‘a menace [that] represents
the threat of further chaos emerging’ (Butler
2010, 10)
in a city that is already failing to function.
Figure 6: Atlas/Frank
Fontaine
Once revealled as the antagonist, portraying Fontaine as the monster allows the
game to present him as the physical embodiment of the ethics and morals he
upholds. Just as Dorian Gray makes the
transition to his real self in The
Picture of Dorien Gray at the end of the novel, his ‘withered wrinkled, and
loathsome’ (Wilde
2006, 188)
corpse on the floor, so too does Fontaine’s first taste of ADAM reveal his
monstrosity to the player.
I
believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more
powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of
industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest
that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful
and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different
either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck."
(Fuller 2007, 24)
The Great Chain is a motif Ryan frequently refers
uses in his speeches and musings regarding the economy of Rapture and is
consistent with the economic elements of Rand’s philosophy. Ryan’s own philosophy of the Great Chain of
Industry is visible in Rapture through statues (Figure 5), and banners, just as
Rand uses her characters in Atlas Shrugged to extoll the virtues of a
free economy, and the understanding that all men will participate in this
system, providing for themselves, and creating employment for other men, at a fair
and just rate of pay. The idea of
industry being the chain that unites all men is, for Ryan, the foundation of
Rapture and provides the basis for the City’s economy; the Great Chain of
industry is the economic freedom given to the inhabitants of the City in regard
to their business and the success of the City.
As long as each person, each link in the chain, is working for their own
self-interest (and not contrary to objectivism), then the chain will be level
and strong, as each link (business) in the chain is regulated by the principles
of the consumer; if there is no demand, or the business is not functioning as
the market would wish, they will simply not use it, thereby eliminating it from
the economy. However, when dishonest
dealings, such as smuggling or cheating a competitor enters the economy, then
this upsets the equilibrium of the Great Chain and the dishonest business becomes
a weak link that can then pull the chain apart.
 |
| Ryan's Chain |
 |
| Jack's Chain |
There is also
a more personal symbolism associated with the chain; Jack has chains round both
of his wrists, (see Figure 6) symbolising his slavery
and lack of free will. The chains are a
symbol of this control, a metaphorical joke by Fontaine, that Jack (who is
genetically Ryan’s son) is a slave to Fontaine and Jack’s inability to disobey
him, his mental chain forcing him to obey commands preceded with ‘would you
kindly’. This makes Jack himself the
weak link in the Great Chain, in that he can cause the downfall of Rapture’s
economy by causing the death of Ryan. The
chains on Jack’s wrist are also a frequent reminder to the player of their own
servitude to videogame design companies.
Whilst it seems clear that Bioshock offers a consideration of
Objectivism, there is some confusion over whether this is a criticism of the
philosophy, or whether the game tries to empower the player into making her own
decision about whether she agrees with the philosophy. It is true that the game shows Rapture, the realisation
of the philosophy ,as a dystopia; the game does not, however, simply show this
as a result of Objectivism, but rather as a result of the introduction of a
destructive force, in the form of Frank Fontaine, that undermines the
philosophy. This is symbolised through
the representation of Fontaine as a monster.
However, the game offers the player an exploration of the philosophy
from within, rather than from without, and allows her to form a decision based
on all the information she collects in the game.
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Beirne, Stephen.
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[1] Casual
games are considered to be games that can be played quickly and easily, with
little learning curve and generally no need to save the game's progress.Invalid source
specified.
[2]
The player is physically safe, in that she is interacting with fictional
characters and situations, without any real danger.
[3]
This is one of a number of religious references in the game. Here, Rapture is descriptive of the
inhabitants being taken from society and led to a better life, just as God is
said to intend to do when he causes The Rapture.
[4]
ADAM is a drug created from the stem cells of a parasite, which replaces human
cells with that of the parasite, causing side effects that act as
‘superpowers’. However, this also causes
cosmetic and mental deterioration in users, resulting in the need for more
ADAM.
[5]
Rand was a self-professed male chauvinist, who believed that women should
engage in male hero-worship, and so the use of gendered terms that favour the
male is deliberate in relation to Rand’s philosophy. (Thomas 2013)
[6] An
automated submarine that carries the player through underwater areas.
[7] In
Randian terms producers are ‘independent, rational and committed to the facts
of reality, […] and to their own happiness (Younkins 2007, 14)
[8]This
is also the basis of the Randian notion of the ‘sanction of the victim’—being
acquiescent to one’s own rights being infringed.
[9] The
religious symbolism cannot be ignored here.
Just as Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge causing
the Fall, so too does the use of ADAM and EVE cause the society of Rapture to
become dystopian.
[10]
Content not considered part of the game, or as extra content, and hidden within
the game for the player to find.
[11]
In the novel Atlas Shrugged, these
characters, metaphorically speaking, hold up the world through their creativity
and ability.
[12] The use of the word parasite to
describe any character that is not of the same ilk as Ryan is taken directly
from Rand’s fiction; she postulated, through her fiction, that any person who
relied on another to survive was a parasite – and that this reliance on another
person was forcing them to live for your sake.
[13]This
is a recurring theme in Rand’s fiction, most explicitly found in Anthem and The Fountainhead as well as Atlas
Shrugged.
[14] I
am not certain whether this is where the discussion will go – maybe Ethics is a
better place?
[15]
Objectivists believe that whilst they put their own self-interest above others,
they do not do this to the detriment of any other person, which is perceived as
having another person live for their sake.
[16] Fontaine
does not uphold Marxism; he is working for his own gain, and the lower class
inhabitants are useful to his plans to conquer Rapture, rather than for
altruistic means.
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