Objectivist gaming

[Joseph Norris]

I've been a gamer almost all of my life, long before I begin to really learn about philosophy.

I think there are very few games that have any Objectivist content. The only clear example I know of is a negative one - the Bioshock games series, in which the antagonists are clearly what the writers think Oism will produce (a bunch of violent savages, basically).

I've seen occasional games which speak positively of self-worth and capitalism. But the vast majority of the gaming world seems to either desperately avoid anything that can be clearly interpreted as a philosophical idea, or pander to the self-destructive altruistic socialistic types.

So I'm interested in designing games, I suppose you could say they're my art, but I don't know if there's much interest in them having Oism content and ideas.

Does anyone here have an interest in games, or know anything about Oism (or really any good philosophy) in gaming?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Joseph,

I don't game much, but I've studied this some.

I see putting Objectivist content into a game as threading the needle through several different conditions. I presume you want this game to be successful and make money and not be just one more O-Land thing put out by a nonprofit. If the nonprofit thing is your idea, I say go with whatever you wish.

 

But if you want to sell this sucker, here are some thoughts off the top of my head.

1. The market. Do you want to sell this only to people within the O-Land and libertarian universe, or do you want it to have general appeal? If you want to restrict it to the smaller universe, that will determine what the focus of the game will be. In my experience, O-Land people like puzzles a lot, not so much first person shooter kinds of entertainment. And even then, a puzzle can go mainstream. For example, making the game centered around one or more mysteries. My gut feeling (without any market research or anything like that) is to use the mystery format slanted to O-Land and libertarian people (and please take making a decent persona seriously in market terms, not just in ideological terms), then after that has some success, build it out toward the mainstream. This is even the approach Rand made in writing Atlas Shrugged. 

There is also another approach I see possible. That is include something productive for the player to achieve--that is invent something, build something, and so on. Being a game, the more larger-than-life the better. For instance, have players build massive industrial complexes or invent things that will upend increasing brain power and education, or treatments that enhance people's health, or new forms of product delivery suitable for all industries, and things like that. The gamification things I think could be used here are the elements they used in a game like the old Farmville. Instead of weather as the environmental enemy and friend to create the conflict, there could be other competitors in the same field, hostile takeovers, government regulations and so on. There has to be an increasing store of goodies for this concept to work.

2. To avoid copyright headaches and control freak people getting in the way, which has been the case with most efforts to expand on Objectivism in the market, I say make up a new story to base the game on. You can't copyright principles.  And the marketing can allude to parallels with Objectivist stuff without running afoul of anyone's vanity. btw - Making new stories and schema up is not so hard once you learn it.

3. One big problem with Rand's kind of fiction is her villains. They are not conducive to shoot 'em up situations since their villainy is mostly deals made in the shadows, deception to get goodies and mates, playing the pull game to get government power and things like that. These can be good villains for the mystery form. 

4. Obviously, the normal gamification things have to apply, that is moving up levels, some form of score keeping, tokens or other "power up" elements, Easter eggs, and so on. I think it would be a good idea to make a list of the most successful gamification elements, then brainstorm each separately to see how well it can do what it needs to do for the public, but still stay without the Objectivist principles orbit.

5. To be successful, you have to think about how to handle the addiction part. This means going through the behavioral science stuff and seeing how far you want to take it. This also includes the work of people like Nir Eyal, BJ Fogg and others that most of the successful game developers and social media companies use to structure addiction.

I am a former addict (alcohol, then crack cocaine), so this is a sore area for me. I always joke that there is a callous where my nucleus acumbens used to be.  So I am not too keen on addicting people on purpose. But I also realize that releasing a product that does not elicit strong surges of dopamine, serotonin, cortisol, endorphins, and so on, such product, if geared toward mass entertainment, is doomed to fail. And with games, ignoring this stuff is guaranteed suicide.

I have brainstormed a bit about this. For example, instead of getting dopamine stuck in a feedback loop, like with endless scrolling (or Flappy Bird), there can be some of that, then the curiosity can be gradually nudged toward the mystery or in discovering the secret of some philosophical principle or something like that. Timers, the appearance of a new environment or danger, and things like that can be used for this nudging. At least a loop would have an end as new dopamine elicitors are presented to keep the player engaged. 

 

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I don't want to put anymore effort into this right now until I see if you are interested.

Michael

[Joseph Norris]

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I presume you want this game to be successful and make money

That would be ideal. I guess the question on this is: is it worth trying to make it a profitable venture rather than a nonprofit passion project? I don't know if there's a market for that.

It's something I would be interested in doing either way. But knowing if there's a market to make a profit on it is really important to how I go about it i.e. if I'm looking at a large budget or not. There are ways of making good games on high and low budgets, but it's a piece of information that needs to be there from the conception of the game. It also affects whether I can make it a full-time employment for myself, or whether I would approach it as a hobbyist.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

O-Land and libertarian universe, or do you want it to have general appeal

So, to be clear up front: I absolutely do not want to take Objectivist ideas and soften them to have general appeal. If I can't find a way to include them that has general appeal, I would rather run it as a nonprofit.

But if I can think of a way to honestly represent Objectivist ideas in a game, without compromising them or apologising them, and still have general appeal, that would be the best case scenario.

One way of kind of side-stepping this issue is a game with Role Playing elements. I'll briefly summarise as you're not a big gamer. Basically the player takes the position of the character in the world, and is presented with choices about how to proceed at important decisions often in conversation with non-player characters. One thing I know I find intrusive when I play games with any attempt at serious ideas is when I (the player) am forced to silently tolerate ideas that I strongly disagree with and have no way of saying in game "this is wrong, you're terrible people". I assume this would be equally annoying for people who disagree with Rand, but if they were exposed to characters that had ideas like hers but weren't forced to accept and agree with them (and could, say, tell them they disagree, and choose not to talk to them so much in the game) they could still enjoy the game. It would then mean that pro-Rand people would have a character that they could enjoy interacting with in-game, and people who are new to the ideas could have exposure and possibly learn about a new better way of viewing the world.

That of course hinges on writing the character well but that's a whole other problem.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

O-Land people like puzzles a lot, not so much first person shooter kinds of entertainment

If that's the case it wouldn't pose a problem. I love puzzle games as much as action games (the Half-Life games are great examples of games that do both). I've played a number of terrible puzzle games, where the puzzles are actually fine and interesting but I found I had to grit my teeth through the narrative which was full of very bad philosophy trying to pretend at great and insightful. I think in principle it's a great idea for a way to make a game, and a game that actually contains good ideas in the narrative could be a significant success.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

2. To avoid copyright headaches and control freak people getting in the way, which has been the case with most efforts to expand on Objectivism in the market, I say make up a new story to base the game on. You can't copyright principles.  And the marketing can allude to parallels with Objectivist stuff without running afoul of anyone's vanity. btw - Making new stories and schema up is not so hard once you learn it.

Yes I absolutely agree, if I were to do a game like this independently I'd focus on principles.

That said - the Daily Wire are working on their Atlas Shrugged movie. They've already published one game (a tabletop family social game) too, so they're certainly open to branching into new markets, they're at least open to spreading Ayn Rand's ideas even if they don't agree with her entirely, and they've already got the connections for negotiating rights. I've considered approaching them about a video game, but I would need to go in with a solid pitch ready.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

3. One big problem with Rand's kind of fiction is her villains. They are not conducive to shoot 'em up situations since their villainy is mostly deals made in the shadows, deception to get goodies and mates, playing the pull game to get government power and things like that. These can be good villains for the mystery form. 

This is something I've actually thought about. Yes, except for the final confrontation when they rescue Galt in AS there's very little exciting gunplay. But I think action and combat is very often a useful symbol and metaphor for a conflict of ideas, and if combat in  a game is done in the purpose of good ideas (such as defending yourself from attackers) it can carry good ideas (though possibly not as well as when there's some degree of serious discussion).

There's also the possibility of something more political, there are many such games out there.

I had an idea for a game where the players each represent major industrial giants, and part of the game mechanics would involve potentially trying to manipulate the government to favour your side. So players could choose between trying to push for restrictions that hurt their opponents so they can peddle in pull, or taking problems honestly and dealing with them in terms of objective worth and capital. This would again be a more indirect expression of the ideas - there wouldn't be a whole lot of explicit discussion of ideas involved. The joke (I have a dark sense of humour) is that if the players do decide to peddle in pull, use blackmail and foster corruption to enable crony capitalism, the whole economy does worse and it's impossible to get as high a score if players do this instead of playing honestly.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

4. Obviously, the normal gamification things have to apply, that is moving up levels, some form of score keeping, tokens or other "power up" elements, Easter eggs, and so on. I think it would be a good idea to make a list of the most successful gamification elements, then brainstorm each separately to see how well it can do what it needs to do for the public, but still stay without the Objectivist principles orbit.

I'm aware of the classic gamification tactics.

However I think this is a bad way of making a game. I'm a very serious believer that, like ideas, like people, and like buildings, a good game needs integrity. To have that, it needs a clear guiding idea. The correct mechanics and features and story for that idea must all be created with that idea in mind. There are important functional reasons for this.

That said, if it's acceptable within the integrity of the game, then sure I'll gamify the hell out of it. My point is, the game idea needs to come first before working on gamification strategies if I want to make a game that treats Rand's ideas with due respect.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

5. To be successful, you have to think about how to handle the addiction part. This means going through the behavioral science stuff and seeing how far you want to take it. This also includes the work of people like Nir Eyal, BJ Fogg and others that most of the successful game developers and social media companies use to structure addiction.

I am a former addict (alcohol, then crack cocaine), so this is a sore area for me. I always joke that there is a callous where my nucleus acumbens used to be.  So I am not too keen on addicting people on purpose. But I also realize that releasing a product that does not elicit strong surges of dopamine, serotonin, cortisol, endorphins, and so on, such product, if geared toward mass entertainment, is doomed to fail. And with games, ignoring this stuff is guaranteed suicide.

I have some moral uncertainty about exploiting this sort of thing. I'm not 100% sure where I stand on it. I do think that e.g. gambling (in casinos and lotteries and the like) is immoral because it's exploiting the ignorance of people and manipulating a dishonest excitement out of them. But games should be fun and exciting, and it's hard to delineate between gaming excitement and gambling excitement.

Also I think you have a bit of a pessimistic take here. I don't think a game is doomed to fail if it doesn't exploit addictive behaviour and use microtransactions and so on. There are a lot of successful games that don't use it. Could they be more successful by exploiting people? Well perhaps. But they are successful without it.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I don't want to put anymore effort into this right now until I see if you are interested.

I appreciate the thoughts and understand wanting to test the waters before wanting to go further. I hope your uncertainty is answered.