tripleC 16(2): 782-804, 2018 http://www.triple-c.at Can We Programme Utopia? The Influence of the Digital Ne- oliberal Discourse on Utopian Videogames Luis Navarrete-Cardero* and Juan J. Vargas-Iglesias** *University of Seville, Seville, Spain,
[email protected] **University of Seville, Seville, Spain,
[email protected] Abstract: This article has a dual purpose. The first is to establish the relationship between videogames and utopia in the neoliberal era and clarify the origins of this compromise in the theoretical dimension of game studies. The second is to examine the ways in which there has been an application of the utopian genre throughout videogame history (the style of pro- cedural rhetoric and the subgenre of walking simulator) and the way in which the material dimension of the medium ideologically updates the classical forms of that genre, be it through activation or deactivation. The article concludes with an evaluation of the degree in which the neoliberal discourse interferes with the understanding of utopia on behalf of the medium and with its imaginary capabilities to allow for an effective change in social reality. Keywords: capitalism, utopia, videogame, walking simulator, procedural rhetoric Acknowledgement: The authors would like to express their gratitude to the reviewers of this article and to Christian Fuchs for their feedback and suggestions. 1. Introduction Having its origins in the 17th-century English and French utopian modes, politically focused on pragmatism and optimism respectively (Racault 1991, 33-150), and ini- tially rejected by the Marxist left before being appropriated by philosophers like Ernst Bloch and Herbert Marcuse in the 1960s (Monticelli 2018), the utopian genre repre- sents a reliable index of the capability of societies to envision their best possible fu- ture.