
Scott Alsworth reviews Everything to Play For: How Videogames are Changing the World, by Marijam Did, Verso, 2024
Can videogames be a force for good in the world, or are they the virtual precursors of our own destruction? Is there time to course correct, to instigate revolutionary changes in the industry, or are we racing ineluctably towards the worst that digital culture has to offer?
These aren’t easy questions. But they do need asking — and as developers and players, we’re encouraged to hold ourselves accountable. In reading Marijam Did’s Everything to Play For, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. As I turned the pages, walking laps around my local cornfield, I became increasingly troubled. A Socratic gadfly had alighted on my wrist and no matter what, I couldn’t shake it. As a videogame developer and communist, aspiring to make some small difference through the arts, I expected an easy time of it. And for sure, every now and then I’d read a paragraph and nod approvingly, reaching for stalk cuttings from last year’s harvest to mark a page, so I might remember a little polemical tinder for the coming conflagration. Other times, however, I’d stop suddenly and shake my head, almost as if I’d been wrongfully accused.
Am I one of those developers the author writes about, leveraging social capital? I hope not — I mean, I like to think I’ve always been earnest in my intentions. But are the videogames I’m developing, or hoping to develop, efficacious? Will they help smash those insufferable modes of capitalist production? I don’t know. ‘Help’? Possibly. Only now, I’m not so sure. Then, could I look a child labourer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the eye while they toil at gunpoint and dig for coltan? Have I ever really considered where the rare earth elements of my computer or smartphone came from? There, it’s a shamefaced ‘no’.
I’m halted in my tracks, frowning at the sun. It’s in this line of interrogation that the author’s at her strongest. For those of us making videogames, Everything to Play For is a necessary wake-up call. An invitation almost. Dialectics in action. Moreover, given the fact that Did has a background in videogame development, her writing also has the added weight of a worker’s inquiry — something which has been severely lacking in the past.
Still, it’d be wrong to frame this impassioned title in accusatory terms. The book’s not about instilling a sense of guilt. Rather, it’s about acknowledging the industry’s problems. All the myriad and endemic grotesqueries that suffocate creativity and malform society in the most insidious, intentional manner possible. As Did herself explains, it’s first and foremost a ‘love letter’. Her writing is by turns playful and personal, optimistic and indignant, but never lost in despair.
Indeed, it all reminds me of what the poet, Robert Frost, once wrote; ‘I had a lover’s quarrel with the world’. There’s the same ambivalence. That combined disdain and commitment. A reluctance to accept defeat when our downward trajectory seems certain. It’s not, of course. But make no mistake. There’s a lot of work to do. Thankfully, Did helps us on our way with a number of thought-provoking, tendential approaches. In the third chapter — one of five gamified ‘levels’, ranging from a materialist history of electronic play to a ‘final boss’ fight — there’s a discussion on the instrumental potential of videogames. This, for me at least, was where things became particularly interesting.
I’ve always believed that the industry can learn much from literature, film, theatre, music, and the visual arts, and that those responsible for making videogames are going round in circles, drawing inspiration exclusively from the medium they themselves are creating. Truth be told, it’s become something of an echo chamber. This is an idea Did explores in depth, with references to the shock tactics of modern performance art; a trend already gaining traction with indie videogame developers. Design choices combining the element of ‘surprise’ and player ‘complicity’ are capable of disseminating powerful emotive angles. Challenging assumptions. Their strength isn’t in platitudes and affirming shared ideologies but in their ability to reach, and even influence, those with contradicting views.
That said, there’s a hesitancy and skepticism on the subject of social and socialist realism; ‘how can games become tools for social change rather than mere statements or pieces of propaganda?’, Did asks. Does that mean statements and propaganda aren’t tools for affecting social change? I’m not altogether convinced, providing they’re genuinely reflective. And yet, to be fair, that’s a safe, ivory tower stance to take. The propagandistic impact of Maxim Gorky on Soviet Russia or, say, the more declarative works of Emile Zola on the Second French Empire and Ken Loach on Thatcher’s Britain aren’t quantifiable. Might they have made a meaningful difference? Can the projection of soft power in a Gramscian war of position lead the Left to cultural hegemony? And if not, where do we go? What is to be done?
The fact remains that the videogame industry is ethically compromised, and Did’s absolutely on point when she calls for action. It needs burning down. Rebuilding from the bottom-up. Everything to Play For is unequivocal on that, which is why anyone remotely interested in the global videogame phenomenon should read it. ‘The future’, Did concludes, ‘is not decided. It’s ours for the taking’. I mull that sentiment over, standing on a hill, a smokestack billowing behind me. The fallow earth looks deeper than before and it’s hard not to draw comparisons. In a few months, seeds will be sown and for a few months more, they’ll germinate in darkness. Perhaps this struggle ends in an eventuality of sunlight. Perhaps not. But the message overall is clear: we have to try.