💾 Archived View for tanelorn.city › ~vidak › old-blog › 2014-10-15-.gemini captured on 2020-11-07 at 01:43:10. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2020-09-24)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
---
author: admin
generator: pandoc
title: 'Destiny: Capitalism and MMOs'
viewport: 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes'
---
admin
2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00
Bungie, the video game development studio responsible for the creation
of the multi-million dollar grossing *Halo* franchise, recently released
a new video game for sale. Bungie is one of the most wealthy and famous
video game studios in the industry, so their new game understandably had
a big budget. The game is projected cost to Bungie an estimated [500
million
dollars](http://www.vg247.com/2014/06/30/destiny-ps4-ps3-xbox-360-one-bungie-budget-nowhere-near-500-million/) over
the next decade, and its development and launch was surrounded by a lot
of media-confected hype. [\[1\]](#footnote_minusone) By triple-A gaming
standards it is critical failure, despite the fact that Bungie and its
game's publisher, Activision, [have made a lot of money off of
it](http://www.cnet.com/au/news/destiny-sales-exceed-325m-in-first-five-days-despite-meh-reviews/).
The spectacle of the new video game *Destiny* should give us pause for
thought. It presents itself as an archetype of the mass production of
culture under capitalism. In this vein it is a perfect example of Georg
Lukacs' concepts of *reification* and the *contemplative stance*. In
this essay I will discuss how capitalist cultural forms are reflected
inside the famous new game.
I was inspired to write this essay after reading [this
article](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/destinys-unintended-critique-consumerism)
about *Destiny* in The New Yorker. It argues that the endless cycle of
commodity acquisition in *Destiny*, and, more generally, all MMOs,
reflects the commodification and consumerisation of life under
capitalism. I broadly agree, but I think I can go further than merely
critiquing the immediate effects of capitalism. In this essay I will
argue that *Destiny* is a prime example of how capitalism distorts our
perception, understanding, and interaction(s) of and with reality. I
will also argue that there is a way out of the dilemma, a solution to
the distorting and corrupting effects of mass produced art.
This essay will be divided into three parts.
1. The first part will outline how *Destiny*'s media hype was confected
through advertisement.
2. The second part will discuss how the video game's execution and
design were the result of the bureaucratisation and systematisation
of art production; and
3. The third part will perform a discussion of Lukacs' cultural
metacritique of capitalism. This part will show how *Destiny*, and
other MMORPGs, reflects the distorting culture of capitalism.
Georg Lukacs argued that capitalism distorts our interface with reality.
Two concepts that he used to describe this distortion
are *reification* and the *contemplative stance*. Both are ideas linked
together.
Reification is a real phenomenon under capitalism. It comes about due to
the way economic producers are separated from each other in the
capitalist economic system. As production becomes more specialised, the
only way agents end up interacting with each other is through exchange
of commodities. The effect is that relationships and interactions
between humans become obscured and distorted, and it begins to seem as
if objects are the originators of interactions of relations between
people. The idea comes from the beginning of the first volume of Marx's
"reification means, literally, treating human relations as relations
between things." [\[3\]](#footnote_minusthree)
There are two ways of digesting and interpreting the concept of
reification. The first way condemns capitalism for being an alienating
and inauthentic social system. One example I like to give of this is how
the consumer culture around Apple Corporation works. It perceived that
it is somehow 'cooler' to use Apple products than other platforms, and
that there is a certain x-factor about Apple phones and computers that
improve one's quality of life. Apple consumer culture has gone so far as
to create a cult of personality around Steve Jobs. This first way of
interpreting reification is correct, but it doesn't go deep enough.
A deeper and more incisive view of reification raises questions about
how it comes about. Feenberg provides a useful elucidation:
The theory of reification explains how the cultural pattern of
capitalism is derived from its economic system and, still more
fundamentally, from the practices producing that system.
[\[4\]](#footnote_minusfour)
From this quote one should have detected a circularity in description,
and this observation would have been correct. This is not an error of
reasoning, because it reveals the true operation of capitalism.
Capitalist cultural structures are bound up with the agency of the
members of its society, and one does not, in a one-way fashion,
'determine' the other. This is known as "performativity". In this way,
the separation of the producers leads to reified subjective experiences
of the world, which in turn impact on further material and objective
economic organisation. As Marx says,
\[Capitalism\] must not be considered simply as being the reproduction
of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather, it is a definite
form of activity of these individuals, a definite form expressing
their life, a definite *mode of life* on their part.
[\[5\]](#footnote_minusfive)
This means that reification is first and foremost practical. It is, as
Feenberg notes, "an emergent property of social behaviour, a property
that is irreducible to the traditional categories of subjectivity and
objectivity because it constitutes them".
[\[6\]](#footnote_minussix) This allows us to define Lukacs' concept of
the *contemplative stance*. The contemplative stance is the practical
outcome of capitalism's distorting and corrupting process of
reification. Subjective agency under capitalism that has been reified
assumes the contemplative stance.
But what does this mean? How does a reified subjectivity interact with
the world? Lukacs provides us with an answer.
What is important is to recognise clearly that all human relations
(viewed as the objects of social activity) assume increasingly the
objective forms of the abstract elements of the conceptual systems of
natural science and of the abstract substrata of the laws of nature.
And also, the subject of this 'action' likewise assumes increasingly
the attitude of the pure observer of these -- artificially abstract --
processes, the attitude of the experimenter.
[\[7\]](#footnote_minusseven)
The contemplative stance accepts (or rather, is identical with) the
reified operation and appearance of capitalism at its face-value. It
evaluates capitalism as an alien, artificial system that presents
individuals with no choice but to accommodate themselves to its
workings. In this way individuals are supposed to calculate a way to
bring about favourable outcomes for themselves based on how the system
works. Think: Adam Smith's invisible hand. What is significant to note
is that these calculations are based on formal, abstract, quantified
models. Reified subjectivities divorce theory from practical activity
and attempt to reproduce reality in thought without ever trying to
impact or change that reality. The contemplative stance is so called
because the subjectivity in which it manifests itself is critically
passive and accommodating.
One of the stunning things about *Destiny* was that it was subject to
absolutely no pre-release review. One of the arguments made by Bungie
and Activision on this point were that the game's permanent need for
mass human participation through the internet would have made it
impossible for video game journalists to fully review the game without
the game's servers being live and populated. This is a very clever
argument, but and it attempts to white-wash the truth about the video
game *Destiny*: that it is a commodity. That Bungie and Activision stand
to make or lose a lot of money if their commodity isn't consumed
correctly.
Joseph Jackmovich from Playstation Lifestyle
[reveals](http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2014/09/18/destiny-reviews-how-hype-and-marketing-trump-review-scores/#/slide/1)
how cynically the game was marketed, with review copies of *Destiny*
only being provided to game publications \_after \_launch:
Destiny's release sent a clear message to publications: "You're not
needed anymore." You can be sure that PR departments in large
companies across the world are discussing the state of game reviews in
the wake of Destiny's release and none of it bodes well for the people
who write about games.
Why were game publications jilted? The answer again lies with the
contemplative stance:
Even with the unstated pressure of badmouthing a title you've been
given by a big company, advertising still comes across as a safer
investment --- though an initially more expensive one.
It is indeed bizarre that a work of art should be subject to
quantification and calculation: an 'investment', a piece of divisible
property. But this is not the first time that it has happened. The
reason why this has happened and its effect will be discussed in the
next part. For the time being it is enough to notice that Bungie and
Activision made a scientific-like *calculation* about what would return
them the \_maximum amount of profit \_on their game. At some other point
they probably considered that making a piece of art would be worthwhile,
but that doesn't factor into how to sell it. *Destiny*'s form (an
exchangeable commodity) and the content (its use, its existence as art)
get wrenched apart in this artistic ecology (simply: its 'production'
and its 'consumption'). Perhaps this is why so many journalists pose the
stupid rhetorical question, 'what is *Destiny*?' When the actual quality
of a commodity becomes lost in haze of its formalisation and abstraction
through marketing, one is probably very much entitled to ask, 'what
actually *is* this video game?'
The reader might at first be a little apprehensive and may ask, 'but
surely this is about the openness, accuracy and price of information,
there should be some sort of policeman who steps in and prevents big
companies from lying and twisting the truth'. With respect, I must say
this misses the point. The point is that the whole business of
capitalism affects the way reality's very fabric is constituted.
The *Destiny*'s mass production, and the cultural process from which it
springs, is constitutive of, as Marx said above, the *mode of life* of
our society. This means that the way in which art is mass produced (like
said above, a form of objectivity. This means that there is no perfect
position from which to assail the falseness of this current form of
objectivity. It can only be broken down and transformed from within.
be dependent on the exclusive genius of a person, or a group of people,
but the important thing about it is that it has been produced
exclusively for profit. One thing that always happens when art comes to
be mass produced is that its 'production' (i) becomes divided into many
different specialisations; (ii)
Articles that describe and explain the various in-game commodities have
already started appearing. All of *Destiny*'s in-game commodities are,
as one would expect in a game that mimics the defining cultural features
of capitalism, commensurable in either experience points, the game's
universal currency, or some other commodity. [This
article](http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/23/destiny-guide-consumables/),
from VG 24/7, for instance, explains what 'Consumables' are.
[Other
articles](http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/24/destiny-guide-statistics-explanation/) (also
from VG 24/7) explain the various quantified attributes that are
attached the player's avatars.
Still further, [some
articles](http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/22/destiny-guide-level-fast/)
(surprisingly, still from VG 24/7) outline guides about how to increase
your character's key quantified attribute, its *level:*
Level is everything in Destiny. If it's too low you're going to be
locked out of certain events and instances, and even if you could
access them you'd get blasted to smithereens for being the weakling
you are.
(It is telling to see how VG 24/7 swims with the tide of sycophantic
journalism on *Destiny*, especially after they released a fairly
incisive critique of such journalism
[here](http://www.vg247.com/2014/09/15/destiny-review/). It proves how
cynical and money-grubbing professional video game journalism is.)
==
As Arthur Gies from Polygon
[notes](http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/12/6138497/destiny-review-no-fate),
... once you've fought a faction once, there's not really any
surprises to speak of. Fights don't unfold differently over the course
of each planet once every unit type is involved. Some of them just
take longer.
"Longer" would be polite here, by the way. *Destiny's* combat most
resembles the MMO genre with its bosses, who are, if you'll pardon the
cliche, bullet sponges that take entirely too long to kill.
Although Gies then goes on to argue that *Destiny* is atypical of MMOs
because shooting and fighting seems to be the only way one can interact
with the environment [\[2\]](#footnote_one) (this is
[corroborated](http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/09/03/destiny-review) by
Vince Ingenito from IGN [\[3\]](#footnote_two)), this doesn't detract
from the point that MMOs, and Destiny in particular, operate by
constructing a reified virtual reality.
Phil Kollar, the second author of the same Polygon article mentioned
above ...
Bungie expects players to repeat these few pieces of \[end-game\]
content over and over for the mere chance at a worthwhile upgrade.
a
I recognize that plenty of games build successful, long-lasting
communities out of end-game repetition --- including lots of games I
love. But they tend toward less stinginess with loot and generally
have a lot more content at launch to pull from.
[]{#footnote_minusone}[1](http://www.vg247.com/2014/06/30/destiny-ps4-ps3-xbox-360-one-bungie-budget-nowhere-near-500-million/)
Leo Sun, *Fool.com*, "Back in February, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby
Kotick boldly claimed that *Destiny* would be the 'best selling new
video game IP in history.'"
(http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/09/19/activisions-destiny-and-the-business-of-video-game.aspx)
[]{#footnote_minustwo}[2](#footnote_minusone) Marx, *Capital*, vol 1, ch
1, s 4, "A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in
it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective
character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation
of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to
them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between
the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of
labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same
time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses."
[]{#footnote_minusthree}[3](http://www.cnet.com/au/news/destiny-sales-exceed-325m-in-first-five-days-despite-meh-reviews/)
Andrew Feenberg, *The Philosophy of Praxis* (2014) 62
(http://www.versobooks.com/books/1638-the-philosophy-of-praxis).
[]{#footnote_minusfour}[4](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/destinys-unintended-critique-consumerism)
Ibid, 67.
[]{#footnote_minusfive}[5](#footnote_minustwo) Marx and Engels, *The
German Ideology*, Part 1, Section A, "First Premises of Materialist
Method"
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm\#a2).
[]{#footnote_minussix}[6](#footnote_minusthree) Feenberg, above n 3, 66.
[]{#footnote_minusseven}[7](#footnote_minusfour) Georg Lukacs, *History
and Class Consciousness* (trans. Rodney Livingstone, 1971, 1967), "The
Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought", 131
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/lukacs1.htm).
[]{#footnote_minuseight}[8](#footnote_minusfive)
[]{#footnote_one}[2](#footnote_minusone) "*Destiny* isn't like other
MMOs, because shooting is all it does. There are no character
relationships to explore, no crafting to speak of. There's no monuments
to build or spaces to make your mark on. In fact, there's not even much
variety to speak of --- each environment in the game feels small, and
playing just through the campaign missions, you'll see the same parts of
them multiple times. You'll spend literal hours retreading the same
ground, shooting the same mobs."
(http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/12/6138497/destiny-review-no-fate)
[]{#footnote_two}[3](http://www.cnet.com/au/news/destiny-sales-exceed-325m-in-first-five-days-despite-meh-reviews/)
"That says a lot considering that fighting is, disappointingly, the only
way you can meaningfully interact with the beautiful world around you."
(http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/09/03/destiny-review)