Bioshock as a Critical Object

8/12/2019 Bioshock as a Critical Object

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Ian Garrity

Matthew Tierney

MCM1202RRhetorics of New Media12/18/13, DUE: 12/20/13

Bioshockas a Critical Object

Video games are the new objects of inquiry in critical studies. Their importance to

mainstream media has grown in recent years, with advertisements for video games now

appearing on television, the Internet, and on enormous posters on building exteriors. One such

game isBioshock, a first-person shooter game developed by Irrational Games and distributed by

2K Games which has gained a significant cult following within the gaming community. As a

video game it is an interesting object of critical inquiry because the narrative both counters

rhetorics of technology as put forth by Langdon Winner and Marhsall McLuhan and furthers the

narrative potential of the game as imagined by Marie-Laure Ryan and Alexander Galloway.

Through a deep understanding of the games plot and the theory surrounding video games,

particularly the first-person shooter, we will gain a critical understanding ofBioshockand its

philosophy of choice.

Bioshockis a game about Rapture, a technological utopia gone horribly wrong. Although

the gamer plays as a man named Jack whose plane crash-lands outside a lighthouse that ferries

him down to the city, the ruined desolate metropolis is what truly takes center-stage.

Disembodied voices guide him through Rapture via radios or left-behind audio tapes, and the

few remaining humans are horribly deranged, physically or mentally: splicers, Little Sisters, Big

Daddies, and the main villains Dr. Steinman, Sander Cohen, Andrew Ryan, and Atlas / Fontaine.

Interestingly, Jack only speaks at the very beginning of the game; otherwise he is totally silent.

Thus, the world of Rapture imposes itself upon him and structures his identity as well as the


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gamers.In light of this interchangeability, I will refer to the movement and experience of Jack

as that of the player or gamer.

Raptures ideology is fundamentally based on complete freedom for the individual. Once

the player walks into the lighthouse, the first thing we see is a bust of Andrew Ryan, the leader

of Rapture, and a banner illustrating his core statement of the citys ideology: No Gods or Kings.

Only Man.1It begins with a grand statement of limitless individualism that is not bounded by

religion or any form of authority. He believes that society functions at its best when man is left to

his own devices, outside of morality, ethics and law, and welcomes all of the best to come to

Rapture and explore and do whatever they wish. Advertisements and works of art scattered about

emphasize the centrality of this ideology; and the overarching concept that embodies this

individuality and argues for its potential for societal growth is The Great Chain. It is an

ideology of positive determinism where every action that a citizen of Rapture performs guides

the citys pathfor the better.

The socioeconomic technology that determines the material foundation of Rapture is the

plasmid. Due to innovations in stem cell research, scientists are able to restructure ones genetic

structure via ADAM, a substance derived from a special brand of sea slugs, granting a person

supernatural powers after an injection of that substance into their bloodstream. A person can

teleport from place to place, shoot electric bolts from their hands, ignite oiled surfaces, or

manifest a holographic version of herself to distract enemies, just with an injection of ADAM.

They even open up possibilities for experimentation in fast-growing vegetation, plastic surgery,

or more extreme expressions of the self through art. All one need do to gain these powers is

acquire ADAM and dispense it into a vending machine called the Gatherers Garden.2In order to

1See figure 1 in the Appendix.

2See figure 2


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facilitate this factories run by the government and wealthy private owners churn out new

innovations in plasmid technology, thereby commodifying them and creating an entire

capitalistic structure for freeindividuals to function within.

This technology restructures Raptures socioeconomic hierarchy and transforms the

government into an oppressive institution that rules with its own economic hegemony in mind

rather than guaranteeing the total freedom of the individual. The two primary companies that

compete in the manufacture and distribution of plasmids, Ryan Industries and Fontaine

Futuristics, wage economic warfare on each other when Ryan, also the president of Ryan

Industries, determines that Fontaine Futuristics is a threat to his control. He decides to

assassinate Frank Fontaine and take over his plasmid industry, and that tosses the entire city into

all-out civil war, with the dock workers of Fontaine Futuristics led by a mysterious Atlas fighting

the brainwashed splicers of Ryan Industries. The player enters Rapture shortly after the end of

that civil war, and it is this destroyed utopia that we witness.

It is in the tragedy and fall of Rapture that we findBioshocks mirroring and critique of

rhetorics of technological change that have been illustrated in Langdon Winners book

Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought. The game

allows room for the exposition of these processes by both showing how they are manifested in

the society of Rapture itself in its initial phases and allowing the player to experience how they

have been completely thrown off. The first theme thatBioshocknavigates is that of technological

determinism. Through the writings of Jacques Ellul Winner illustrates a determinism heavily

laden with moral quandary, for men voluntarily enter and submit themselves to social processes

that generate a pattern of technical advance, which, in the end, cannot be distinguished from an

ever-multiplying cause-and-effect progression. . . It is self-generating in the sense that all human


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motives, decision, creative insights, and acts are placed at its service. 3This process appears at

first glance to be Ryans Great Chain, but Winner generates that concept without the role of the

individual. Winners concept of deterministic self-augmentation does not take the individual into

consideration, and emphasizes that man is outside of it and has no ability to guide or limit its

advance.4

Thus, Winners theory illustrates a lie contained within the technological deterministic

concept of the Great Chain, which positions the individual as the arbiter of it. What in fact

happens in Rapture is that every individual is only beholden to their own existence and is entirely

unaware of the possible consequences that this technology has on the society around them and

how the powers-that-be precipitate them. Audio tapes scattered around Rapture detail how their

lives have been affected by the pervasiveness of ADAM and plasmids, but there is never mention

of how society has changed by Ryan Industries or Fontaine Futuristics. And so, the civil war

came without any of their notice. Diane McClintock, a minor character in the game, said at the

eve of the war, as fighting broke out all around her, What. . . what happened. . . Im bleeding. . .

Oh God, whats happening. . .5Instead of assessing her surroundings, she focuses on her body

and its reaction to the chaos, rather than consciously understanding that the reason behind this

civil war was the hyper-development of technology.

Technology in Rapture also distorts the body and senses of its users. Marshall McLuhan

addresses this phenomenon in his essay The Galaxy Reconfigured or the Plight of the Mass Man

in an Individualist Society. He discusses how society is restructured by technology, and he bases

3Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought, (Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press, 1977), 61 - 624Winner, 62

5Audio diary from Irrational Games, Bioshock. (Take-Two Interactive, 2008), PS3. Welcome to Rapture. Clip can

be found here:http://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-

_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogg
http://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/d/d6/Diane_McClintock_-_New_Year%27s_Eve_Alone.ogg


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this re-imagination on a conception of the body. McLuhan imagines a possible market economy

that can handle what comes off the assembly line [that] presupposes a long period of psychic

transformation, which is to say, a period of altering perception and sense ratios.6However, this

new economy is certainly not a positive one: such co-existence of technologies and awareness

brings trauma and tension to every living person.7These effects are embodied in the figure of

the splicer. Splicers are people who have become addicted to the high induced by ADAM and to

self-perfection. The player can hear them wander the halls of Rapture proclaiming Im gonna be

a star! I came here to be a star!8or Things were supposed to work out for me down here!

9The

reality of Rapture and its technologies failed their expectations, and the splicers are left with only

their own awareness of what went wrong. The promises of an improved, free life provided by

heightened technological development in fact forced these people into a slavery of addiction and

yearning, cursing the leaders and forces that had brought them down to this hell.

***

However, these observations all revolve around the experience of the world itself. If we

are to imagine the video game as a text, we must examine it as a cultural object and a textual

signifying system. In what ways does the narrative form of the video game expressed? What is

its relationship to other narrative modes, cinema in particular? How is the gamer positioned

within this text and what ideologies does it impress upon the player? With an understanding of

6Marshall McLuhan, The Galaxy Reconfigured or the Plight of Mass Man in an Individualist Society in The New

Media Reader, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 987McLuhan, 202

8MamaLuigii, BioshockSplicer DialogueRosebud, (YouTube: June 29, 2009), Web, December 20, 2013. 0:47.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfguKSFBU1I9MamaLuigii, Bioshock Splicer Dialogue Toasty, (YouTube: June 28, 2009), Web, December 20, 2013. 1:01.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8KtmFWoJfs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfguKSFBU1Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfguKSFBU1Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8KtmFWoJfshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8KtmFWoJfshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8KtmFWoJfshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfguKSFBU1I


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these aspects of the video game, we can then access howBioshock as a text both critiques those

processes and advances them through its narrative.

Marie-Laure Ryan discusses video games as a narrative mode on par with others such as

film and radio, as it allows the gamer to more intimately access its story and experience it as an

activity similar to life itself.10

She examines actions taken in video games as halfway points

between real life and watching a film; players are both agents. . . [and] spectators of their own

pretended actions.11

There are two degrees of separation between the player and the avatar, the

controller and the screen, yet the connection created by actively piloting a character through a

world without the intellectual work demanded by other literature is what establishes the video

game as a compelling narrative method.

However, Ryan does not allow that reading for the first person shooter (FPS), the genre

that describesBioshock. She writes, the narrative design is not the focus of the players

attention but an affective hook that lures players into the game. . . Having fulfilled itsrole as a

lure, the story disappears from the players mind, displaced by the adrenaline rush of the

competition.12Ryan accounts for this aspect of the FPS by explaining the Platonic concept of

ludus, where the game is based on rules that produce outcomes (winning, losing) that bear

certain values (wanting to be a winner, fearing to be a loser), which the player strives for.13

The

gameplay rules of the genre itself prevent the player from becoming invested in the story as the

actions that she takes within those rules ultimately determine her own self-conception. The

prospect of being killed and thus being a loser makes the story obsolete, so the FPS does not

allow the opportunity for a compelling narrative.

10Marie-Laure Ryan, Avatars of Story, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 191

11Ryan, 190

12Ryan, 197

13Ryan, 198


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in his article Games Without Play,but the foundation for his argument in this article is an

understanding of the video game as a signifying system rather than as an object to be theorized

on its own terms. In doing so, he overturns many of the concepts that Galloway established in his

writings on the video game, including the processes of identification and exploration, the concept

of winning and losing, and the possibilities of narrative. Through a discussion of Derridas

concept of play,he illustrates that the freedom of exploration through the FPS could also be

examined in line with the concept of structurist exploration contained within play.18

The

process of identification is also problematic: the player identifies not with a character on

screen. . . but rather with the point of view of a character who is generally unseen during

gameplay.19

This point jeopardizes Galloways claim of player identification by pointing out the

presence of a pre-defined perspective. Golumbia implies that if the player is piloting from a

certain point of a view, they are in fact inhabiting a perspective with its own ideologies, politics,

and rhetorics.

He deepens this claim through his own discussion of the contrast between winning and

losing. Golumbia goes so far as to say that in the FPS there is no winning or losing, only the

accomplishment of objectives assigned by an outside force. By virtue of this core gameplay

mechanic, there is no possibility for the complex systems of identification that define other

literatures.20

The fact that this gameplay only allows for the killing of enemies leads Golumbia to

then conclude that these games are instantiations of capitalistic culture:

To the degree that computer games as a genre reflect us as we are,

we as a social group are far more murderous and bloodthirsty than

out polite, everyday selves suggest. . . games simulate our own

18David Golumbia, Games Without Play,New Literary History 40:1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

Winter 2009), 181 - 18219

Golumbia, 18420

Golumbia, 186


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relation to capital and to the people who must be exploited and

used up for capital to do its work. But it is overly simple to call this

activity simulation: a better term might be something like

training.21

So the only possibility left open to examine the subjective positioning of the FPS within this

capitalistic perspective is in the flight simulator, where the player is trained to become a killer,

the person that we are underneath our societal selves.

The developers ofBioshockare fully conscious of the games capitalistic rhetoric, and

work against it by creating its own out of its narrative structure. The creator of the game, Ken

Levine, was inspired by Ayn Rands The Fountainhead, going so far as to base many of the

characters and the ideology of Rapture itself off of her objectivist, laissez-faire capitalistic

writings. However, he imagined this philosophy practiced by real, human characters as opposed

to the superheroes that Rand depicts, thus deepening the emotional and human impact of the

story.22

This newly-introduced humanity then establishes a philosophy of choice.23

When

confronted with the choice between killing a Little Sister, a recurring character in the game, to

gain a large amount of ADAM immediately or saving her to acquire a small amount but with the

prospect of gaining a larger amount later and other perks, the player must make a choice on his

own terms.

It isBioshocksavailability of choice that reverses Golumbias claims about the FPS.

Although the problematic of identification is still at work, the perspective that the game imposes

upon the player is not that of a subjugated worker in a murderously capitalistic society, but as a

human who must make his own choices within a ruined world. He must examine the desolate

21Golumbia, 194

22Kieron Gillen, Exclusive: Ken Levine on the Making of Bioshock,

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/20/exclusive-ken-levine-on-the-making-of-bioshock/(August 20,

2007). Date accessed: 12/20/1323

David McCutcheon, Ken Levine Talk Bioshock,http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-

bioshock(August 30, 2007). Date accessed: 12/20/13
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/20/exclusive-ken-levine-on-the-making-of-bioshock/http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/20/exclusive-ken-levine-on-the-making-of-bioshock/http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-bioshockhttp://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-bioshockhttp://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-bioshockhttp://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-bioshockhttp://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-bioshockhttp://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/30/ken-levine-talks-bioshockhttp://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/20/exclusive-ken-levine-on-the-making-of-bioshock/


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city surrounding him, dominated by the failed promises of a laissez-faire techno-capitalistic

society, in order to allow him to survive and find out who he is and why he is there. It is these

choices that structure the games story and world. Do you raid an abandoned motel to hunt for

supplies, or do you advance directly to the objective? Do you kill the Little Sisters, or save them?

Do you follow the rhetoric of the world around you, or do you fight back against it? As the

speakers in Rapture ceaselessly shout, We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make

us.


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AppendixFigure 1

http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016005431/bioshock/images/3/31/Bioshock_2009-01-

09_04-43-59-78.jpg

Figure 2

http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100221212960/bioshock/images/8/8c/Gatherers_garden.png
http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016005431/bioshock/images/3/31/Bioshock_2009-01-09_04-43-59-78.jpghttp://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016005431/bioshock/images/3/31/Bioshock_2009-01-09_04-43-59-78.jpghttp://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016005431/bioshock/images/3/31/Bioshock_2009-01-09_04-43-59-78.jpghttp://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100221212960/bioshock/images/8/8c/Gatherers_garden.pnghttp://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100221212960/bioshock/images/8/8c/Gatherers_garden.pnghttp://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100221212960/bioshock/images/8/8c/Gatherers_garden.pnghttp://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016005431/bioshock/images/3/31/Bioshock_2009-01-09_04-43-59-78.jpghttp://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111016005431/bioshock/images/3/31/Bioshock_2009-01-09_04-43-59-78.jpg


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Figure 3

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GeuklARMTdU/TdLsisB-

HaI/AAAAAAAAAFk/bUl8FQQU9CM/s1600/game+over.png
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GeuklARMTdU/TdLsisB-HaI/AAAAAAAAAFk/bUl8FQQU9CM/s1600/game+over.pnghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GeuklARMTdU/TdLsisB-HaI/AAAAAAAAAFk/bUl8FQQU9CM/s1600/game+over.pnghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GeuklARMTdU/TdLsisB-HaI/AAAAAAAAAFk/bUl8FQQU9CM/s1600/game+over.pnghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GeuklARMTdU/TdLsisB-HaI/AAAAAAAAAFk/bUl8FQQU9CM/s1600/game+over.pnghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GeuklARMTdU/TdLsisB-HaI/AAAAAAAAAFk/bUl8FQQU9CM/s1600/game+over.png


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Miscellaneous

http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb//GamesRadar/us/Games/B/Bioshock/Bulk%20Viewer/PC_360

/2007-07-18/3--screenshot_large.jpg

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091126052145/bioshock/images/7/7d/The_Great_Chain.png
http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/B/Bioshock/Bulk%20Viewer/PC_360/2007-07-18/3--screenshot_large.jpghttp://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/B/Bioshock/Bulk%20Viewer/PC_360/2007-07-18/3--screenshot_large.jpghttp://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/B/Bioshock/Bulk%20Viewer/PC_360/2007-07-18/3--screenshot_large.jpghttp://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091126052145/bioshock/images/7/7d/The_Great_Chain.pnghttp://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091126052145/bioshock/images/7/7d/The_Great_Chain.pnghttp://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/B/Bioshock/Bulk%20Viewer/PC_360/2007-07-18/3--screenshot_large.jpghttp://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/B/Bioshock/Bulk%20Viewer/PC_360/2007-07-18/3--screenshot_large.jpg


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Splicers

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100311071007/bioshock/images/a/a7/Spider_1.png

http://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/archive/1/19/20091214040659!Houdini_Splicer.png
http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100311071007/bioshock/images/a/a7/Spider_1.pnghttp://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100311071007/bioshock/images/a/a7/Spider_1.pnghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/archive/1/19/20091214040659!Houdini_Splicer.pnghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/archive/1/19/20091214040659!Houdini_Splicer.pnghttp://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/archive/1/19/20091214040659!Houdini_Splicer.pnghttp://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100311071007/bioshock/images/a/a7/Spider_1.png


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http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130910222210/bioshock/images/a/ab/Leadhead_Splicer.png
http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130910222210/bioshock/images/a/ab/Leadhead_Splicer.pnghttp://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130910222210/bioshock/images/a/ab/Leadhead_Splicer.pnghttp://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130910222210/bioshock/images/a/ab/Leadhead_Splicer.png

Documents

Bioshock as a Critical Object