• Amphobet
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    13911 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
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      5511 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
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      11 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.

      • KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ
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        11 months ago

        Just now I realized I’m the NPC in some rich asshole capitalists life.

        • @[email protected]
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          411 months ago

          I think it works pretty well in real life too.

          Privileged, child, or petite bourgeois aspirations?

                • @[email protected]
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                  11 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          2011 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1011 months ago

      The first game it has shown me is…

      WORKERS & RESOURCES: SOVIET REPUBLIC

      Gabe knows some irony

    • @[email protected]
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      1011 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      -611 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
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        1011 months ago

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

        • @[email protected]
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          -511 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
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            11 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.

    • @CustosliberaOP
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      11 months ago

      I hope next week is the Socialist and Communist Fest.

      • no banana
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        711 months ago

        Do we have enough games on that theme? There are some and I would love it.

        • @CustosliberaOP
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          11 months ago
          • Red Alert 1, 2 and 3
          • Papers please
          • Disco Elysium
          • Soviet Republic
          • Hearts of Iron

          Sure there are others

          • @effward
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            311 months ago

            Does Atomic Heart count?

          • @danciestlobster
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            11 months ago

            I mean disco Elysium you CAN be communist. They also sprinkle on their fair share of satire targeting communists. Such a good game though either way.

            In the socialist category we also have not for broadcast

  • JoYo
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    5211 months ago

    when is valve gonna release capitalism 3?

      • @bi_tux
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        811 months ago

        I think it’s some kind of indian luck rune

      • @[email protected]
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        511 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 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).

    • @Chriswild
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      411 months ago

      Valve would have to go to mom before Google would let them have a turn on the capitalism 3.

  • Nina
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    4311 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1111 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.

    • @cosmicrookie
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      11 months ago

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

      • @[email protected]
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        311 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.

    • @bi_tux
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      711 months ago

      I mean they got our attention, so they’ve done it right ig

    • AggressivelyPassive
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      211 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
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    3511 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
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      1611 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.

    • no banana
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      1211 months ago

      I wouldn’t buy it if he gave me money.

      • @DarkMessiah
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        611 months ago

        I would buy it if he gave me money.

        I need to eat, fam.

    • @grue
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      11 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
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        211 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

  • @Spesknight
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    1811 months ago

    Buy Kapital and Soviet Republic en masse

  • THCDenton
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    1411 months ago

    I was confused until I saw the games for sale. Well played, Valve.

  • R0cket_M00se
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    1211 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

  • @Spesknight
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    111 months ago

    They heard us! Soviet Republic is now on sale!