• Amphobet@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1453·
    10 months ago

    Communists shaking and crying right now.

    Capitalism is a very common/popular tag for games on Steam. Of course, it’s a fantasy version of capitalism where you can actually get ahead.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
      572·
      10 months ago

      These games are tagged capitalism, but they use this wild version of capitalism where the person doing the work gets to keep the value their work creates. I think there’s a name for that…

    • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
      39·
      10 months ago

      Being fair, capitalism works great in games. The system necessarily determines a winner, there are no externalities inside of a video game, and the people whose labor you’re profiting from are NPCs.

      • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
        63·
        10 months ago

        I think it works pretty well in real life too. Nevertheless, I’d be thrilled to see an emergent economic simulation game that was serious enough that you could imagine it reflecting reality. That you could test out real economic politics and see how they work out.

        I don’t think there’s such a thing. And also, economics is hella boring so it could be that an accurate game like this would also necessary be a bit boring.

        • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
          51·
          10 months ago

          I think it works pretty well in real life too.

          Privileged, child, or petite bourgeois aspirations?

              • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
                12·
                10 months ago

                Reading an actual book on economics makes it impossible for a benevolent individual to be a communist, at least without a physically painful amount of cognitive dissonance.

                Do you feel angry or depressed often? It’s cognitive dissonance. ;)

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
                  21·
                  10 months ago

                  Reading an actual book on economics makes it impossible for a benevolent individual to be a communist, at least without a physically painful amount of cognitive dissonance.

                  Oh, you sound really informed on this. What books of marxist economics have you read to come to this conclusion? What theory of subjective value based economics books?

                  I mean, I’ve just spent over a decade studying various schools of economics, maybe you have much more insight than me on this topic.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
      32·
      10 months ago

      The only good capitalism sims are GameDevTycoon, which makes you complicit in the enshittification while playing a plagiarized game, and Roller Coaster Tycoon, which accurately depicts the tycoon mindset.

        • InputZero@lemmy.ml
          20·
          10 months ago

          In the first game I remember charging about $5.00 or something for the bathroom. Easiest fake money I’ve ever made to fuel the construction of my psychopathic murder rides.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
        12·
        10 months ago

        RCT does a really good job emulating the massive desire to drown your guests that all tycoons eventually get.

  • sirdorius@programming.dev
    654·
    10 months ago

    The fun thing most of these games aren’t even truly capitalist. City builders like Cities Skylines, Tropico and Anno have little or no free market and you’re just in control of a centralized planned economy.

    The only truly capitalist games I saw on that list are X4 and Offworld Trading Company since you play as a single private owner competing with others on the market.

    • Lesrid@lemm.ee
      111·
      10 months ago

      My friends who play PDX games with me and know my politics sometimes tease me about the game using currency or referencing profitability. And then I remind them that we’re all meticulously planning our economies with virtually nothing left for a privileged class to decide. And our decisions, though made in a context of imperialism, aren’t being made for personal wealth but state power.

      • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        10 months ago

        Except when you’re playing Victoria and the capitalists decide it’s time to build the 34th arts academy with the building capacity it took you sweat and blood to build.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
      10·
      10 months ago

      The first game it has shown me is…

      WORKERS & RESOURCES: SOVIET REPUBLIC

      Gabe knows some irony

    • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
      410·
      10 months ago

      Cities skylines is definitely a capitalist economy as you literally make your earnings by changing tax rate and the only thing you control insofar as unmodded goes is zoning and city services lmao

      • OmenAtom@lemmy.world
        122·
        10 months ago

        Its not capitalist, its a planned economy. Taxes can exist outside of capitalism

        • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
          510·
          10 months ago

          This just in: America not capitalist. You have exactly as much control as the average American town/city does in that game. Control of zoning and road development isn’t a “planned economy” lmaoo. The entire game is based in and around a capitalistic society and the demand created by said society in your town for it to grow that’s the whole reason for the demand bars.

          • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
            7·
            10 months ago

            You also don’t really have to worry about satisfying the demands of huge multinational corporations. So it’s pretty idealized, as though capital has no undue influence on state-level political decisions.

      • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
        5·
        10 months ago

        I notice that 3 looks like a sideways ω, which is the symbol used to represent an ordinal number larger than all finite ordinal numbers.

        In other words Valve might see 3 as essentially meaning infinity, and is thus unreachable. No matter how many new versions they make, they can never get to 3.

      • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
        3·
        10 months ago

        I feel old that I remember when people made this joke about Capcom - That they didn’t know how to count to 3. Now it’s just Valve, it’s for all their games instead of one, and I feel like it’s been true way longer than I could make the joke about Capcom lol.

        For context, there was like a million versions of Street Fighter 2. (SF 2 : Champion Edition, SF II: Turbo, Super SF II: New Challengers, Super SF II: Turbo, Hyper SF II, it went on and on).

  • Nina@lemmy.mlEnglish
    484·
    10 months ago

    jokes aside, it’s just not a really attractive title.

    I’ve played 48 hours in one of the games in there, Traveller’s Rest, about running a tavern. It has money, supply, employees, trends etc. But I’m not enjoying it because Yay Capitalism! It’s because when you’re running your own cute shop with virtual money it’s fun. I do like the genre, but being reminded of the systems that are causing a lot of real world shit is just a bad title.

    But I guess “Business Sim Sale” wasn’t flashy enough.

    • rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml
      131·
      10 months ago

      But I’m not enjoying it because Yay Capitalism! It’s because when you’re running your own cute shop with virtual money it’s fun.

      You can run a private business without engaging in capitalist exploitation. That’s something a lot of people would probably find enjoyable.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
        5·
        10 months ago

        As fun as that is, I love a game that starts out innocent fun then slowly reveals as you progress that you were always a monster, the only difference is now it’s starting to impact the world in a way that you can’t ignore anymore. It’s up to you when you want to stop.

    • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
      8·
      10 months ago

      Games showing us that it has never been about the monet/credits. It’s about making and experiencing

      • Lesrid@lemm.ee
        3·
        10 months ago

        Not only that but by necessity the money/credits in nearly all games (EVE Online a possible exception) is closer to a labor voucher of sorts than a commodity. And labor vouchers are a potential avenue for transitioning a society away from currency.

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
      2·
      10 months ago

      Also, these games are not about failing, fear and hunger. Capitalism is.

      It wouldn’t be fun to play, if you’d have to grind 16h a day and be in danger of homelessness or starvation if you lose.

      People play CoD all the time, but I’m sure a substantial percentage of the players would decidedly not enjoy bleeding out in an abandoned cottage.

  • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
    437·
    10 months ago

    I keep noticing an alex jones game selling for 20 bucks on steam and wishing I had a way to deface it or harm him personally in some way

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
      16·
      10 months ago

      Came across this game too. I took a peek in the discussions for the game and oh boy was that a trip. I’d suggest making some post in there about his court cases or something. IMO steam probably shouldn’t allow anything about jones on their storefront period.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      10 months ago

      On the bottom right of the page, next to “Share” and “Embed,” there’s a flag icon. Click it, and you can report the product. I figured “Defamatory” was a likely category…

      • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        Thanks Grue, I reported it for defamation. I wonder if it would be possible to land a DMCA claim against the game on top of the report

  • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    10 months ago

    I considered uploading this as well, under the title “How to break a Gabe Loving Communist brain”

    Glad to see I wasn’t alone lol

  • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
    121·
    10 months ago

    Or just hoard your actual wealth like Scrooge McDuck and play openttd without paying a cent.

    Probably a better game than 99% of that junk too.