Trapped by Screens: How Video Games Transformed the (Real) World

Currently, the video game industry generates more revenue than the film and music industries combined. That fact alone would be enough to recognize its impact on society , but video games are also extending their influence to other territories. From dating apps to banking systems, they incorporate what is known as gamification, and online communities are increasingly becoming political actors. Despite this context, for Marijam Didžgalvytė , author of How Video Games Are Changing the World (Ediciones Godot), public conversation continues to underestimate their influence and focus on its more trivial aspects. Didžgalvytė is one of the foreign visitors who will participate in the Publishers' Fair (FED) from Thursday, August 7 to Sunday, August 10 at the C Complejo Art Media (Av. Corrientes 6271).

Didžgalvytė was born in Lithuania, and for financial reasons, her family had to emigrate to London. By the time she was seven or eight, Didžgalvytė was already killing monsters in Doom and building houses in The Sims. In England, Didžgalvytė became involved with left-wing activist groups who frowned upon losing themselves in virtual fantasy worlds. Nevertheless, she continued playing secretly.

In 2018, she became an organizer for the video game industry's first legal union , born out of the Game Workers Unite movement. The specialized site GamesIndustry.biz included her on its list of 100 Women of the Year in Games. She is currently a Senior Marketing Manager at a BAFTA-winning video game studio. In August, Didžgalvytė will visit Argentina to participate in the Publishers Fair.

In How Video Games Are Changing the World , chosen by The Guardian as one of the best books of 2024 , Didžgalvytė thinks of video games as both cultural objects and political tools . “The other day I was watching the BBC Morning Show, and they mentioned video games, and immediately a second sentence was like, ‘Yeah, but they can be really violent, can’t they? ’ It’s a very lazy way of looking at this massive cultural phenomenon. The good, the bad, and the ugly—that’s the point. If we don’t have a more sophisticated conversation, then it’s going to be a lot harder to root out the much more toxic parts of this industry,” Didžgalvytė tells Clarín , speaking from Estonia.

The sexism, xenophobia, and racism present in online communities, the colonialist and militaristic values of some games, and, above all, the high levels of labor exploitation are the toxic aspects Didžgalvytė alludes to.

“It's precisely because we're having these terribly uninteresting and vague conversations that our attention is diverted from what really matters . That is: the radicalization within video games and communities. The predatory mechanics and monopolization in the video game industry. The fact that six companies practically own everything and are buying each other up. The issue of very, very inhumane working conditions, hiring and firing cycles, and the industry as a whole being heavily reliant on an 'original sin.' It's a broader conversation, but I'm referring to the need for the tools for making and enjoying games to be built on the blood, sweat, and tears of people in the Global South,” Didžgalvytė points out.

His book, in addition to providing an overview of these issues, is a wake-up call to the progressive political spectrum for having ignored the political nature of video games . “I think it was a huge mistake that cost us dearly, while other, more strategic people recognized these populations much earlier and won, bringing in Trump. We're trying to catch up, and it's already like 20 years late,” says Didžgalvytė.

Before becoming Donald Trump's key advisor, Steve Bannon was an investor in the game World of Warcraft. "This is a man driven by his ideology, a very ambitious man , and he's been quoted as saying, 'What I found are thousands of lonely, politically motivated, very active men who, above all, are angry.' So I think he very astutely sensed this kind of electric energy that was there," he says. For Didžgalvytė, the reasons for this anger are due to a decline in the quality of life of the middle classes along with a crisis of masculinity.

The association of video games as the preferred domain of young men with poor social skills, however, is nothing more than a stereotype with its own history. “In the book, I trace the history of how, almost by accident, frankly, the population we perceive as solitary gamers emerged. It's due to a couple of marketing decisions in the 1970s and a couple of Silicon Valley companies ,” he explains, adding that the US Department of Defense's funding for the development of military games also played its part.

Slowly, companies realized they needed to expand their market to continue growing and modified their strategies . Furthermore, the reduction in costs associated with creating video game software allowed the entry of new independent players with their own narratives, although these games are often rejected by some gamers who consider them "politically correct." For the author, however, this conflict is somewhat artificial and seems more like a marketing ploy to sell more products.

“There's this perception, I think, that just because I talk about games and politics means I want more political games or games with more representative characters and so on. Of course, there's an element of that, and it's important. In fact, I don't think it's even been done well that many times because we have very archetypal characters everywhere. But really, at the core of what I want to express with the book and my ideas, there's a much more material approach: following the money to understand our medium . I don't care about the stories told in video games. What matters much more to me is how they're made,” he maintains.

For Didžgalvytė, the way video games are produced also ends up shaping the final products in some ways . If, in many cases, they're created to be addictive, it's because there's an economy that monetizes attention. “I don't think video games are the only culprits here. Of course, it's most evident in gambling and social media, but it's in something as seemingly innocent as Netflix's binge-watching mechanics—skipping to the next episode, something that didn't happen before. So I think this war for attention is spreading to much of our current culture ,” he says.

In this context, for Didžgalvytė, left-wing movements have a broad scope for action . The book is underpinned by the question: can video games really drive social change?

“Even through consumption , one could talk about ethically manufactured hardware, things like the Fairphone or real investment in renewables and so on. But again, we're not even having this conversation. The conversation is anti-consumerist and blame-based. And I think there's another, slightly more thoughtful side that's proposing, 'Maybe if we make some election video games featuring Zohran Mamdani [Democratic candidate for mayor of New York], it might help.' But that's where my art education kicks in, and it really questions how seriously we're taking conversations about efficacy . And whether we end up preaching to the already converted instead of truly reaching new people,” Didžgalvytė wonders. “That's if you believe that content can have an effect. And I do believe that's the case. I've seen wonderful pieces of art that have really done that,” he adds.

For Didžgalvytė, video games are a form of artistic expression, and she's surprised that while film and television are meticulously dissected, the same isn't true of games. For example, she notes that while Gus Van Sant's film Elephant about the Columbine shootings received the Palme d'Or, the video game on the same subject, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, merely shocked by its depiction of violence and was removed from online stores, even though its creator had a more complex goal.

The organizational potential of gamer communities, Didžgalvytė argues, is also exploited by production companies as a kind of unpaid labor that distorts the concept of leisure time .

“Nick Srnicek's definition of so-called 'platform capitalism,' I think, describes very well the phenomenon that many of the larger tech products, and certainly even video games, are a pretty empty platform, really. It's created for us, and it's really the consumer, whether it's the Uber driver or the people on social media, who are creating the profit . For example, in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game space, it's the players. I mean, Minecraft is just Legos, and then everyone makes what's in it,” he illustrates.

What draws users, then, is often not the game itself, but the community around it. That's what, at the end of the day, says Didžgalvytė, we're all looking for, and that's why changes in the industry can also be driven by the collective experience of union organizing.

Looking ahead to her upcoming visit to Argentina, Didžgalvytė is enthusiastic . “It’s interesting to understand that I can write an entire book and think of myself as an internationalist, but I haven’t actually traveled to that many places,” she confesses with a laugh. “So I feel enormously privileged and grateful to Ediciones Godot for organizing this. It seems like we’re building a network of comrades who are interested in these things and want to be a little more ambitious in the way we talk about the subject,” she concludes, convinced that the game for the future of video games is not yet over.

How video games are changing the world , by Marijam Didžgalvytė (Godot Editions).