Abstract
Central to the experience of new media is the idea of interactivity, even though this dovetails problematically with both arguments for grassroots agency and neo-liberal economic philosophies alike. This paper examines the 2007 computer game Bioshock in relation to its thematic employment of the ideals of market libertarianism as depicted in the novels of Ayn Rand and its strategic use and withholding of agency at critical moments in the gameplay. It argues that Bioshock not only uses the techniques of traditional narrative forms to address the culturally significant issue of the impossible alliance between traditionalism and libertarianism under a conservative banner but also uses the interactive medium to generate a genuinely new aesthetic experience in which the logic of free choice in the narrative, ideology, and medium are simultaneously brought into juxtaposition. This moment marks a landmark development in digital narrative and opens new possibilities for the art form.
Highlights
Introduction to GameTime.‖ First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game
This paper examines the 2007 computer game Bioshock in relation to its thematic employment of the ideals of market libertarianism as depicted in the novels of Ayn Rand and its strategic use and withholding of agency at critical moments in the gameplay
It argues that Bioshock uses the techniques of traditional narrative forms to address the culturally significant issue of the impossible alliance between traditionalism and libertarianism under a conservative banner and uses the interactive medium to generate a genuinely new aesthetic experience in which the logic of free choice in the narrative, ideology, and medium are simultaneously brought into juxtaposition
Summary
The technique of ironic juxtaposition is apposite for the game‘s narrative engages a perplexing yet critical development in contemporary American society: the emergence of an impossible alliance within modern conservatism between traditionalists and libertarians, between a group committed to the status quo and one explicitly demanding a radical overthrow of the current social order in the name of an ideal society That these two worldviews co-exist under one banner is a political paradox and Bioshock‘s aesthetics pivot on the disjunction between the two. From a Marxist perspective, an industrial product marketed to a global public asanti-capitalist‘ may be inherently problematic (Aldred and Greenspan 2011), but there is no paradox because Bioshock is not anti-capitalist, it merely illuminates the possible consequences of a philosophy that substitutes libertarian values for those that have traditionally held society together The only reason this is not immediately obvious is that traditionalism and libertarianism form the two halves of conservatism, but this illogical connection is a product of reality and not a fault of the game‘s design
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