This paper will seek to investigate the utopian rhetoric surrounding digital interactivity and its relationship to neoliberal citizenship, specifically in regards to the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, The Sims Online. Tentatively, I want to organize this argument into two sections. First, I intend to look at how common phrases used to describe video games, like “freedom of choice” and “player empowerment,” relate to the illusion of choice and empowerment produced by the gameplay mechanic itself. For theoretical inspiration, Baudrillard’s notion of the consumer who is “free to make the choice imposed on him (sic)”, as well as Celia Lurie’s notion of the new media object’s “dynamic unity,” seem to be particularly germane to this idea. Also, Alex Galloway’s essay on Deleuzian “societies of control” in video games could be useful to my argument.
In this section, I am interested in how the loosely structured “rules of the game” instantiate an American Dream-like view of individual and collective progress in which structural inequalities and relations of power are glossed over. During this section of my paper, I intend to look at both how the individual user’s effort of play-labor directly correlates to career progress, status, and social mobility, without regards to how race/class/gender/age/etc might give players a certain “handicap” (despite the superficial “customizability” of an avatar) and how consumption of virtual goods and services is the necessary means by which players gain rewards.
In the second half of my paper, I intend to take my analysis beyond discussions of the core game mechanic and look at specific instances surrounding the Sims’ virtual (and virtually) free markets, their real-estate/entrepreneurial ventures, and how their simulated government is run. Although I have not yet read the readings for our unit on “Consumption and Citizenship,” I am sure that these works will provide me with a sound theoretical framework for how to more specifically conceptualize the relationship between virtual public spaces and neoliberal citizenship.
P.S. for Aniko: I have a professor who suggested Ernesto Laclau as a good source for writings on liberal democracy, but did not point to any specific readings. I was wondering if you had any specific suggestions for texts by this writer as it relates to my project.
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