Rêves d’accumulation : l’économie dans les jeux vidéo de science-fiction
Contemporary video games often function as digital science fictions that strive to manifest late capitalism’s ultimate self-manifestation. In particular, many popular blockbuster games construct and deploy world systems that operate according to the economic principles late-capitalism proposes shoul...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Université de Limoges
2018-12-01
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| Series: | ReS Futurae |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/resf/1998 |
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| Summary: | Contemporary video games often function as digital science fictions that strive to manifest late capitalism’s ultimate self-manifestation. In particular, many popular blockbuster games construct and deploy world systems that operate according to the economic principles late-capitalism proposes should, according to its fantasy vision, structure the fabric of modern economic life. These games manifest, in several perplexing ways, a variety of capitalist wish fulfillments and visions of how lived economic systems might work if capitalism were free from the limiting restraints of what some economists regard as the imperfect distortions of the real world. This article examines massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in order to demonstrate how the planned obsolescence of goods is a mandatory and inescapable feature of economic life in many digital environments. In such games, ubiquitous obsolescence creates infinite demand which can always be met with increased profitable supply. Furthermore, these games often enact the fantasy that all property can be regarded as intellectual property ; everyday objects like clothing items are licensed for limited use rather than purchased for permanent ownership. Even in MMOs that do not encode elaborate systems of planned obsolescence to manage demand, however, the principle of creative destruction is elevated to its free-market apotheosis in order to orient consumer play toward endless commodity consumption. |
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| ISSN: | 2264-6949 |