Schlagwort-Archive: Pokemon GO

Prepare For Free Market, And Make It Double! – Pokémon GO and Libertarianism

von Iván Goldman

The world seems to be witnesing a rise in the popularity of an historically marginal ideology: Libertarianism. Specifically, right-wing libertarianism, an ideology that although traces its origins to ancient philosopy took its current form in the United States in second half of the XXth century. Libertarians mainly believe in an almost complete lack of regulations to the economy, free market capitalism, individual freedoms and the reduction of the State to its smallest possible form (Bherer, 2023).

The victory of Javier Milei in Argentina’s presidential election (Buschschlüter, 2023), the rise in popularity of Vivek Ramaswamy in the political arena of the Republican Party in the United States (Reid, 2024) or even Elon Musk’s posts in the X social media platform (Robertson, 2022) are some of the most resounding examples of this trend. But libertarianism has probably been around in a widely consumed media for close to a decade through a videogame that was widely popular – and still is: Pokemon Go.

Prepare For Free Market, And Make It Double! – Pokémon GO and Libertarianism weiterlesen

Computerspiele, Kapitalismus und Psychoanalyse: Alfie Bowns “The Playstation Dreamworld”

von Eugen Pfister

Die folgende Rezension zu Alfie Bowns Essay “The Playstation Dreamworld” erschien ursprünglich am 02. Mai 2018 auf videogametourism.at [ https://videogametourism.at/content/computerspiele-kapitalismus-und-psychoanalyse-alfie-bowns-playstation-dreamworld]

Im März 2018 erschien im Guardian ein Opinion-Artikel mit dem Titel: „How video games are fuelling the rise of the far right“. Der Literaturwissenschaftler Alfie Bown argumentierte darin – wie ich übrigens auch – dass Spiele „ideological constructions“ seien, „which push a set of values on the user“ und weiter: „video games put the user to work on an instinctual level, making the gamer feel impulsive agreement with these ideologies.“ Der vorprogrammierte Sturm im Wasserglas des Kommentarbereichs sowie der sozialen Medien ließ nicht lange auf sich warten. Unter den KritikerInnen befand sich so manche B- und C-Prominenz aus der Spieleszene; inhaltliche Kritik suchte man aber trotzdem vergebens: „lol, this is so stupid“ war da schon der Höhepunkt der Argumentation.

Es war vielmehr die gewohnte instinktive Abwehrreaktion, „Mann“ fühlte sich wieder in der Gamer-Seele angegriffen, „Mann“ könne doch sehr wohl erkennen, wenn man wo mit ideologischen Inhalten konfrontiert würde! Und bei Plants vs. Zombies sei das ja wohl ganz sicher nicht der Fall!

Computerspiele, Kapitalismus und Psychoanalyse: Alfie Bowns “The Playstation Dreamworld” weiterlesen

The casual is political

“Gamification as a prime example of Foucauldian governmentality”

by Robert Heinze*

[The following text was written in response to  „Keep your Politics out of my games!“  as well as the impromtu reply by Tobias Winnerling.]

“If we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, obesity, I believe that we need to aspire to play games online for at least 21 billion hours a week by the end of the next decade.”

– Jane McGonigal: Videogames for a Better World, TED Talk, 2010.

 

Games, as all popular media, are a diversion. That doesn’t mean they can’t convey political ideologies, as Eugen Pfister has argued. And even the fact alone that they are a diversion makes them political, Tobias Winnerling answered. As part of the culture industry, they remind us of the old roman saying of panem et circenses, or, to (horribly) paraphrase Adorno and Horkheimer: Kratos in the games gets his beating so that the players can get used to the same treatment. The significance of casual, short-time diversion in a society characterised by fragmentation of private time and the blurring of the border between work and leisure is obvious; as is the relevance of Winnerling’s argument about the political role of such a diversion. But the influence of casual games on our society goes further. The casual is political weiterlesen