Bailes - Ideology and the Virtual City : Videogames, Power Fantasies And Neoliberalism.

Videogames are gradually recognized as a new cultural form which reaches far beyond mere entertainment: they enact new forms of subjectivity and temporality. However, this fascination with the new form should not render us blind for the fact that, in their content, even at its most magic, videogames are firmly rooted in our neoliberal capitalism and faithfully mirror its antinomies. This is where Bailess book enters. Through a detailed analysis of selected games, from Grand Theft Auto to Persona, he demonstrates how they reproduce the key dimensions of a modern megalopolis: the City as Playground, as Battleground, as Wasteland, as Prison Ideology and the Virtual City is not only insanely readable; in its combination of vivid descriptions with theoretical stringency, it provides an unsurpassable introduction into the deadlocks of our real life. In short, an instant classic for everyone who wants to understand not just games but our reality itself.

Slavoj iek

Videogames are the battle ground on which the culture wars are fought, and the space of gaming is shaping the political present and future, whether we like it or not. In this insighful and politically vital intervention, Jon Bailes reads the contemporary city through its representation in videogames and considers how city space itself is tranformed by games. Bailes shows how the city and the virtual world can hardly be separated, making a case for a critical-theoretical engagement with games which makes their politics, importance and limitations visible. A timely and important book on a topic so easily and so often misunderstood, setting the terms for future discussions of gaming.

Alfie Bown, author of The Playstation Dreamworld

Ideology and the Virtual City

Videogames, Power Fantasies and Neoliberalism

First published by Zero Books, 2019

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Text copyright: Jon Bailes 2018

ISBN: 978 1 78904 164 4

978 1 78904 165 1 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947800

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For Cihan

In the final moments of the videogame Persona 5, one of its teenage characters, Ryuji Sakamoto, comes to the conclusion that, If you want to change the world, all you have to do is just look at it differently. Indeed, by this point in the game the world has changed, primarily due to the efforts of the group of young rebels to which Ryuji belongs, with their ability to enter an alternate dimension formed from unconscious cognition to alter peoples innermost desires. But even in more everyday circumstances, without such supernatural power, there is something relevant about Ryujis sentiment, in that the first step to any social change is recognizing how certain assumptions underpinning our behavioural and ideological norms are contradictory or counterproductive. If we cannot shift our perspective towards an alternative view, we simply wont challenge these assumptions, and things stay as they are. If that seems obvious, what is less so is what it really means to look at the world differently, because some ideas are so heavily entrenched in cultural processes and institutional structures it may never occur to us that they are matters of perspective at all. Even major disruptive events, such as economic crises, wars and natural disasters, may fail to shake the received wisdoms that connect much of society. In fact, despite Ryujis observation, this problem of perspective also applies to him and his friends, who ultimately havent changed the world as much as they think because they didnt consider the deeper causes behind the social issues they resolved.

This book is about some of the deeply entrenched ideas in modern societies, and how they may make it more difficult to properly confront widespread social problems such as poverty, oppression and environmental decline. It is also about videogames, and how they function as modern cultural expressions that represent different responses to and interpretations of those ideas. So what are these ideas? To begin with their form, or how they take shape and become part of our lives, I am in a sense talking about dominant ideology, yet not exactly a clear philosophy or set of political aims consciously propagated by an elite class (although that is one aspect), so much as a diffuse atmosphere that intertwines with everyday processes. In many ways it is the common sense that tells us what is expected of us and what should make us happy in modern societies, in areas such as work, leisure, health, property ownership and human relationships. It is not a command that we must obey directly or completely, but a set of unwritten guidelines in the background of social life, which we may internalize in different ways, depending on our particular personalities and circumstances.

As for content, it is difficult to give this background a definite name because it is often reproduced without ideological intent, by people simply following the routines of their daily practices. It also varies from one society to the next and within societies themselves, depending on the identities and cultural experiences of the groups that comprise them. Even so, to a great extent we can see this background as an effect of a particular economic reality that exists today with a level of consistency across the globe, in terms of the expectations it places on people in both the wealthier and poorer parts of the world. To this degree, the background which connects us all and which we all respond to psychologically, whether in support or criticism, is capitalism, and specifically the modern form of capitalism that can be loosely called neoliberalism, whose notions of value have colonized our existence. Put another way, it is under the economic and political neoliberal orthodoxy of the 1980s onwards that a logic of competition, instrumentalism and unimpeachable market sovereignty has been gradually normalized throughout social life. This logic reinforces pre-existing notions about the necessity of wage labour and consumerist ideals of personal fulfilment. Yet it also tells us that, regardless of the social problems that remain, this is as fair as society will ever get, and it is up to us as individuals to realize the opportunities for success and satisfaction it provides.

Certainly, neoliberalism is not the only determinant of the common sense background ideology in modern societies, not least due to a continuing patriarchy that is also often deeply embedded in everyday assumptions and behavioural norms (and evident in the games examined in this book). But neoliberal conceptions are central to our daily decision processes, not to mention our understanding of what is politically and economically possible. Thus, even when people arent happy, and want their lives or their societies to change, the neoliberal background still tends to frame the scope of their critical imagination. Seen through its lens of common sense, it is not neoliberal capitalism itself that is the problem, but the government for being too bureaucratic, or certain groups of people for demanding too much, or ourselves for not working hard enough to realize our potentials. And then, even where capitalism or neoliberalism clearly are the problem, the logic tells us that there is no better alternative anyway. But what if we reframe the way we view social problems by looking at the demands of neoliberalism themselves? What if the particular pressures we experience to advance our careers, enjoy ourselves with consumer entertainment, accumulate property and construct an idyllic family life are the