Video games often use the rhetoric and i⛄magery o🧸f revolution. Although “gamers rise up” is a joke at this point, video game ads invite players to topple or overthrow as much as escape or live out their fantasies.
So, if games are so pr😼o-revolution, why aren’t gamers?
There are a number of games that include rebellion against a dictatorship or police state. We're not talking about just indie games, either - these are AAA games that get lauded by gamers as “apolitical.” Just Cause has players dropping into a Caribbean island and deposing a dictator there. Far Cry 4 pits players against the tyrannical leader of the fictional Himalayan country of Kyrat. Both Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and Homefront have the player go up against North Korea, the former as a free agent soldier on the peninsula itself, and the latt♋er as a former-marine-turned-freedom-fighter in the occupied United States.
Based on these games alone, you could be forgiven for thinking that the game industry and gamers in ge💮neral were against authoritarianism, corruption, and abuse of power.
However, community response to the recent protests against authoritarianism, corruption, and abuse of power say differently. Most major game companies have only offered , with🐟 nothing concrete beyond a Twitter post. Even this was too much for many fans, since the replies of these messages are filled with calls to avoid politics and stick to video games. How is it possible to reconcile the theme of armed uprising against police states across so many games with the support for police state tactics against protesters in real life?
The answer is a healthy dose of American exceptionalism and everyday racism. The one thing that all these games have in common is that they all take place in foreign nations, either genericized depictions of the third world or America’s actual geopolitical enemies. There is an American cognitive dissonance that America is superior to other parts of the world regardless of actions, and therefore abuses of power in America can never be as bad as they are elsewhere. American gamers are completely willing to accept the “president” of Just Cause’s San Esperito as an undemocratic dictator, but never that Ameﷺrican systems of power could be dictatorial.
In addition, not all revolutions are particularly revolutionary. Many of these revolution games feature not a local fighting their own corrupt government, but an American traveling to a foreign country, often as an agent of the United States. Just Cause features an agent of The Agency, which is a thinly-veiled CIA equivalent, while one of the friendly factions in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is CIA-backed South Korea. Even Ajay Ghale’s interests briefly align with𒊎 the CIA’s in Far Cry 4.
In reality, has little to do with whether the governments are dictatorships and more to do with American foreign interests. These games look less like the history of American revolutionary movement♊s, and more like the history of American imperialism. There’s very little to reconcile here. The government that sends agents in to destabilize foreign powers is the same one that defends police brutality at home.
Other games that do actually criticize America fall short of offering any solutions. BioShock presents the entire city of Rapture as a critique of American capitalism, but also reveals the revolutionary Atlas to be another capitalist in disguise. BioShock Infinite doubles down by painting Daisy Fitzroy, who is rebelling against slavery, as a ruthless child-killer. Fallout 4, which exists in a world where America is even more openly xenophobic and fascist, includes the male player character, a soldier, and Nick Valentine, a cop, among its heroes. It’s unsurprising that fans of these games could see police as alwaysཧ good or revolution as dangerous or disingenuo𝕴us.
While games seem to rely hꦇeavily on the aesthetics of revolution, it is no surprise that gamers’ support for reaꦚl life rebellion is lacking. According to many games, the only acceptable type of revolution is the type America incites in other countries.