Thread by @Logo_Daedalus

The Battle Royale might be the apotheosis of the american pirate capitalist model. Robinson Crusoe meets The Most Dangerous Game. Darwinian struggle to slay everyone & become the reigning 1%. Entirely composed of what BAP noted was lacking in modern life, the control over space.

It's not coincidental that this gametype was created in America. Unlike the more team-&-role oriented MoBas, & defuse oriented FPSes, the BR replicates what pink academics would call "colonialism"- the complete genocide of an area's competing populations.

I recall articles about Sadism in Day-Z corresponding with the sudden realization of anonymous internet mob "toxicity." I sense a connection between cyberculture & video game design environments, most obviously connected via GamerGate etc- but something deeper.

It's obvious that video games are, for better or worse, the reflective media of our times- we know this as the "simulation" has become the prime mythological symbol, & the new means of discussing pop-metaphysics. God is now "the Almighty Game Designer."

To his credit, Rawls sort of predicted the discussion of "spawn balance" via his original position. He considers human society to be a simulation under our collective control, which is where he went wrong. God doesn't necessarily listen to fan demands for specific patches.

If we can say that a Battle Royale is "balanced" are we not also vindicating the "winner-takes-all" model of capitalism people so widely moan about? The first politician to compare political corruption as an unbalanced "pay to win" scheme will do well. Gamer Politicians incoming.

In general, gamification is going to drive the future. It's not only an effective means of incentivizing task completion, it's a way of selling players on the "balance" of a particular social order. The metaphors make themselves.

So the real irony of the irony brocialists is that most of them choose to spend their free time simulating a complete laissez faire cutthroat pirate simulator. I don't see them playing "DemSoc Utopia Simulator" in which you, uhh, idk, play Fortnite or something?

Really the Feminist push that GamerGate was against was more communistic than the DemSocs in that they understood media as programming social mores. The most marxian (& unfunny) of chapo, fatt griftman, at least got it right in his debate on vidya with vergil.

Video games replicate the sort of balanced competition that people yearn for. They directly conflict with any sort of Leftist ethos of cooperation & equally shared loot. Gamers are only pleased when their game ennables maximal competitiveness. Co-op limited to tribes/firms.