I have found this game fascinating for years. I also find this essay fascinating. I think I disagree, however, with the assessment about the game’s “cavalier treatment of fascism.” I’d go so far, in fact, as to say that the treatment of fascism is the “whole point” – not, though, because it is “crass,” as Gold Machine asserts. The “fictional” essay by the “fictional” Victor, the game’s supposed concern about the transparency or translucency of the code, this all pretends to be the game’s heart, but it is really window-dressing. Fascism is the heart. Fascism is the battery from which the game draws its power. Without the Nazi angle, indeed, I doubt the game would’ve been created – even though you could take the “version integrity” mechanics/themes and drape them over another subject. But would they have been draped over another subject? No. They were draped over this subject for a reason.
The game is pro-Nazi, supposedly blindly at first. The author, recognizing this error, removes the Nazi content, transforming it into an anti-Nazi game.
At this layer, most players have seemingly, over the years, stopped. They take the “fictional” essay at face value. They trust the game. And over the years, this has vexed me, since I have pointed out to people that there are more layers – but people often do not follow up, they don’t look deeper, they rest on their half-informed (flawed) analysis.
But if you peel back that extra layer, you see that the anti-Nazi sentiment was in fact a pro-Nazi sentiment, hiding the fascism gleefully in plain sight. The Nazi mode is still there. All the anti-fascist moralizing was a hollow act. Morals themselves are transformed into a game. The horror is low-stakes because genocide is a plaything for the pro-Nazi author’s amusement.
But pull this layer back, and you find that there really is a sincere anti-Nazi author who is depicting a sincere pro-Nazi author who is depicting a facetious anti-Nazi author, and all the dominoes come tumbling down.
To put it another way, before the resurgence of fascism in the USA had achieved its current velocity, this game, for me personally, is one of the cultural artifacts that pried the “cartoon mask of Pepe the Frog” away to show the ugly truth behind the mask. I didn’t learn any lesson like “Make sure to double check your source code!” from this game. That, despite supposedly being the game’s main concern, is, as I mentioned before, almost irrelevant. But the game did demonstrate to me how fascism erodes truth and undermines reality purely for its own amusement, specifically in the context of the online world. As someone who lives in the USA, and who has had family members fall into the spiraling death-vortex of the rising right-wing tide, I feel like this game is one of the bulwarks I’ve had in my own life to guard against said tide. Not hypothetically. Actually! If my family members had played and understood it, they might not be so far gone.
So this is me “hunkering down and confronting this text in a serious manner.” Not that I haven’t before, but I haven’t posted about it publicly.
Does situating the subject in an argument about source code make sense? Well, yes, since source code = reality, and this game is about how fascism defines reality.
Maybe the game is too clever for its own good. Since lots of people don’t pull back all the layers, there’s a risk that any player might stop at any point along the way – including one of the false pro-Nazi points, which may not feel false if more layers haven’t been unpeeled. Maybe that’s too dangerous. Maybe it’s irresponsible. But it worked for me, and I feel that it intellectually armed me. So consider my reaction a data point, if nothing else.
