Games that avoid capitalistic design

In November 2021, narrative designer Megnha Jayanth posted a transcript of a talk entitled “White Protagonism and Imperial Pleasures in Game Design” online. In it she argues that games are deeply rooted in Anglo-American and European imperialism. It’s a complex argument, and I highly recommend you read the whole essay, but there is one point in particular I latched onto – games, according to Jayanth, are difficult to extricate from capitalism and colonialism, seeing as the tastemaking cultures in the industry are both.

There are many ways in which capitalism has an influence on the industry; here I’m going to focus on design. Monetisation and play-to-earn structures are two especially egregious forms of capitalism that are hotly debated, but less obvious forms of capitalism exist in most popular video games. There are obvious examples in which games put us to work, like the cycle of work and consumption in Animal Crossing that many memes make fun of even as we enjoy it, or management games and city builders. But work is also inherent in filling a skill tree, or a progress bar. The satisfaction you feel at levelling up is engineered by an inherently capitalist reward loop – you’ve worked hard for something, so as a reward you’re granted something with which to do more work.

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