2 minute read
The Editor
TheEditor
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The morals behind a good game of Stonk
I’m sure by now you’ve either deciphered to your satisfaction just what the hell went on with GameStop. Or you’ve decided it all makes no sense whatsoever… but hey, what does make any sense these days?
I’m certainly not going to try and lay yet another explanation upon you for the madness that occurred around the US’s biggest games retailer. Though I will say that I rather enjoyed watching financial journalists try to understand why Reddit communities do something (answers in thesis form please); while games journalists tried to get their heads around the insanity of the financial market.
And insane it is. A triple-header collision of aggressive competition, incredible technology, and rulesets that have evolved from the very beginnings of society into something mind-bogglingly complex to anyone who doesn’t play themselves. ...Hang on a second, that all sounds rather familiar.
Of course it’s no coincidence that the users of r/WallStreetBets had an awareness of and (arguably) a soft spot for a physical games retailer. Undoubtedly, many are also members of numerous gaming reddits as well. Looked at one way, the financial markets are just another game, one where you can set the stakes as high or low as you like.
Technology also means the lines between the financial markets and gambling are now paper thin. Just practically speaking I can jump from Bet365 to Robinhood on my phone with a quick tap, and both can be linked to, and impact upon, the same bank account.
Investing in companies is straightforward, you find a stock that you believe will grow and you put your money into it. Simple and positive. But shorting companies, taking a position that they will fail rather than thrive, feels far more akin to gambling.
Investing has long been a moral guiding light of our capitalist system: speculate to accumulate as the saying goes. However, at the same time, betting is largely frowned upon, something the games industry is well aware of.
But maybe we’re just not trying hard enough. Maybe loot boxes are exploitative not because they are like gambling, but because they’re not enough like a real financial risk. Maybe if we allowed people to win or lose hundreds, thousands, millions of pounds on their next microtransaction we’ll finally live up to the expectations of modern society and be showered with the kind of rewards that London’s hedge fund managers enjoy.
Not very likely, but it’s clear that there’s a double-standard here, and it’s one that games are perfectly placed to explore, culturally speaking.
Maybe someone should try adding shorting as a mechanism to some games. Allowing you to bet against yourself before you start playing, reducing your losses should you lose as predicted, but capping them, or even inverting them should you win big. It would certainly add something to the roguelike genre for starters.
