Can a video-game appear to send a message(s) – or even make an argument? If so, then how?
Even as they appear to enter a golden age, video-games are still not always taken seriously as works of art or literature. One reason for this is that their dominant purpose is entertainment, rather than striving to encourage critical thinking or conveying any moral message. Yet despite this perception, video-games can make use of setting and mechanics to put forward political arguments. Bioshock Infinite provides a good example of the disjunction between a game’s playful experience and more serious undertones.
At first glance Infinite‘s setting ‘Columbia’ seems like a childish fantasy: a city in the clouds. The protagonist’s quest is, in essence, to rescue a princess from a tower guarded by a giant bird or dragon-like creature. Light-hearted ‘Steampunk’ technology and magic potions abound. We also find that the city is an image of American patriotism, with grand statues of the founding fathers. Christianity is clearly influential as well. The mood appears quite positive. Thus far Columbia seems like a nice place to live. Perhaps the game’s argument is to follow your dreams.
Infinite quickly undermines this with a display of extreme racism, when the player character wins a raffle to throw the first cricket ball at a captured interracial couple tied up in a mocking facade complete with jungle and monkeys. The player can instead choose to throw the ball at the racist presenter, an act of rebellion that one imagines most players instinctively take. Racism is still an issue today but it may not be naïve to say the extreme kind in Infinite is hardly acceptable to anyone. So with this simple 2-choice mechanic, Infinite has already encouraged most players to take a stand against racism, which makes us sympathetic to the game’s further arguments.
We soon find that Columbia is based on an extreme version of the American South, having successfully seceded from the United States. The people are extremely religious as well as racist, and despite being independent they are patriotic Americans – to a point. In the headquarters of the ‘Order of the Raven’ a group which resembles the Ku Klux Klan, the player can spot sculptures and paintings of the US presidents, and will see that Abraham Lincoln has been demonized with horns and glowing red eyes. Columbia echoes Confederate sentiments, and not in a favourable light given that its crazed citizens are trying to murder the player character. The game requires the player to fight back against Columbia, whereas books and films cannot force their audience to take sides to the same extent.
Arguably the argument against these centuries-old ideologies is a little forced – Infinite has picked a softer target than its predecessor Bioshock. Yet as developments of recent years have demonstrated, conservative anti-outsider politics remain relevant. Infinite is an example of a politically astute game. Despite taking place in the past it seems ahead of its time. Video-games can make powerful arguments by imagining the dystopian outcomes of certain world-views, and by encouraging players to take a side, to fight back.
