Play Labour | Mario Is a Class Traitor and Other Stories
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ค. 2021
- Labour permeates our world, it's basically everywhere around us. It's a pretty universal experience, and as such it is far from surprising that the act of working would be portrayed in video games. Join us as we explore both early and contemporary examples of labour based gaming as we pick them apart to find out what they are truly saying about the struggles of the working class.
Special thanks for providing your voices!
@DavidJBradley
@Arcadology
@nichtschwert3307
The Mario Bros video by @HBMmaster;
• the original Mario Bros.
Do what we did and support Eli Rainsberry by buying the Wilmot's Warehouse soundtrack;
elirainsberry.itch.io/wilmots...
List of criticisms against Amazon;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critici...
PATREON: / transparens
TWITTER: / transparencyboo
#MarioBros #WilmotsWarehouse #Sokoban
Bonus meme;
We asked people for some examples of labour based games before making this video, and we got a heck of a lot of responses to it. We quickly realized that we should have been a bit more specific as it turned out we got everything from Zelda Breath of the Wild to fun revolution kids game Pikuniku. While we could not fit all that stuff into the video we still appreciate everyone who came up with ideas, it was very interesting to say the least. Here are some of the games that were suggested, and you should probably check them out;
Va-11hall-a
Tacoma
Cart Life
Going Under
Not for Broadcast
Not Tonights
Five Nights at Freddy's
Viscera Cleanup Detail
Umuragami Generation
Trauma Center
Stardew Valley
Desert Bus
Overcooked
Moving Out
Punch Club
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
Human Resource Machine
OFF
Red Strings Club
Everyday the same dream
Never Alone Hotline
To Build a Better Mousetrap
Assemble With Care
Sunset - เกม
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I love this?? this is such a good video! thanks for the shoutout
Aw, thank you too! We really enjoyed your video!
Did you guys become best friends? Maybe a little bit?
85 20
I worked in multiple warehouses, and the only way sokoban could be more accurate is if you were on a timer and had new boxes appear at random while the warehouse space shrinks and you need to break safety rules and risk your life with platforming challenges to complete a portion of your work, only to be laid off because they cant afford just above minimum wage warehouse worker. And every step requires solving a logical puzzle that keeps evolving in complexity, somehow never staying the same.
This new Sokoban game sounds pretty intense!
Would sound like a big challenge ^^
I wonder if there is a game out there like that.
"Not to mention, he has a triangle tradwife"
Thank you for reading that line aloud
You're welcome. That is probably my favorite line of this. You have no idea how much I laughed about it to myself!
The predictions about Amazon propaganda games is...fun. Hopefully their current track record with game development will hold. Granted, you don't have to look far for games about the accumulation of capital. It is interesting though how Tapper appears to be a Budweiser-sponsored product, with the implicit commercial message being 'Budweiser is so good that it drives customers into a frenzy.' The fact that this ostensibly pro-consumerist game can be read fairly easily as a depiction of unsustainable working conditions feels like a high school lesson on the importance of point-of-view.
Right? We maybe should have talked about that angle too, now that you say it. Because that is very interesting indeed. Rootbeer Tapper came out a short while afterwards to be more suitable for kids too, and I suppose that is a bit more clean when scrubbed of the Budweiser ads.
But he has a triangle trad-wife and five rascals in rhombus rompers to provide for!
We are glad that people really vibed with this one. Such a fun line to record!
Mario being a class traitor is a better game theory than him being a psychopath.
Jesus, I still remember this video and when the content of the channel was mostly not stolen or FNAF.
Haha, this is the best praise we could get!
@@Transparencyboo
Just curious, did you ever watch that channel ?
@@aroace7913 Yes, actually watched that channel when it had just a couple few videos waaaaay back.
I assume you are talking about the channel The Game Theorists?
Wow, that Richard Hogg just sounds like a really nice guy. Vibing with him for some reason.
Hogg also, coincidently, makes the best games ever made.
Watching this while at work in the 15 minutes before we open as I scarfed my meal down the quickest I could before customers started showing up was not only holding its own existential merits, but also unlocking a secret difficulty mode to the video itself. Great work, Alicia! Now I need to purchase Wilmot’s Warehouse!
Thanks, hope you are doing alright. And hell yeah, get on that Wilmot train
what a title! i can already tell we have another banger on our hands here!
Heck, I sure hope so, we could use a banger.
@@Transparencyboo just finished-- it certainly was
@@justdodumb
Agreed, it was a great video ^^
Was my first video I saw and I think I found a good channel from all the comments so far.
THESE GIRLS DON'T MISS!!
* SMACK *
Yes ^^
I just love Corpus in Warframe. Merchant cult, that borderline worship profit and go in great lengths to profit out of everything. Feels like no matter what we do to stop them, like boss robots to stop their production, they still appear as regular enemies elsewhere, bit nerfed of course.
Profit worship sounds shitty, lol
I guess an example of a game would be kingdom hearts 358/2 days somehow. it's a game where the average hour of gameplay is waking up, going to your superior for your daily task as he figuratively/literally sees you as an object, finishing your task as you get your one break is be with friends/associates as that relationship falls apart partly due to the organization you work under. Or maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.
I guess this is why kh 358/2 days is my favourite story
I have never thought about it like that, haha. But yeah, I think that sort of apply. If nothing else it is a really rad interpretation of the events of a freaking DS Kingdom Hearts game!
That is an interresting title for a game lol.
@@aroace7913 its pretty mild by kingdom hearts standarts
24:59 - Yes! I spent the last 10 minuted of the video thinking about how Wilmot's Warehouse would be a great fit for this topic, but wasn't sure if it would be covered. So excited for the second half!
Rad and based.
No u.
Can't believe we forgot to compare CJ Wilmot's Warehouse to CJ Animal Crossing. Inexcusable.
Crimes.
Chill Video Game Discourse to Overthrow the 1% to
Now we're vibing!
Toads when they take the means Of production to Mario: your princess is not going to be in any castle, traitor*jump sound stamp*
The Toads need to stage a revoution soon!
@@Transparencyboo
Freedom for Toads ^^
Agreed toad should fights for freedom.
Great analysis as always! The risk of a game meant to critique being turned into propoganda is a real problem. I believe I read sometthing about how the Flash-based "McDonald's Video Game" was made as a harsh critique of the multinational fast food chain but has been shown to make players more liklely to sympathize with corporate exectives.
Another great example of this is Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor: similarly portraying just barely scraping by while also finding joy in the familiarity of labour and the the small moments of peace you can find within it. I'd often work extra late on the day before the festival in that game, so that I could afford to stop working for a minute or two to listen to the bands playing the next day, or buy a meal that wasn't paste to celebrate.
Was actually thinking of that game while writing up the script for this video. It did get cut in the end, but I still think it fits.
While I obviously love the Sokoban discussion, this video just keeps getting better after that!
Thanks, when you released your Sokoban video we were still in early production of this one, and I just found it very fun that we were thinking about the game around the same time. :)
@@Transparencyboo I really feel we went in completely opposite (and totally valid) directions with it. Mine is more about normativity and design and yours is about playbour and depictions of work in culture. As a result, they compliment each other quite well! On that rare occasion someone wants more Sokoban (almost 2 hours of it!) content in their life, we will be a major blessing upon them!
Excellent video! Your use of game mechanics as evidence for a literary interpretation is really good and is exactly the kinda shit I'm into when it comes to essays about games. I do think that Overcooked works into your thesis better than you give it credit for, as holy shit that game stresses me out, but I also liked that you shifted the focus toward more obscure titles that most people haven't heard of. This channel has such a unique and interesting voice that adds a lot of the genre and that I really vibe with. Keep it up!
Oh, yeah, Overcooked can absolutely fit into the same framework. We didn't mean to say that it doesn't at all, haha. It kind of falls in the same boat as Moving Out we feel personally, but there is plenty of room to analyze them in that manner too. Hell yeah! And thank you for the kind words, glad we can vibe with you!
Absolutely fantastic video as always! 💖 With one of the most powerful dabs in history!
Thanks, I channeled the meme culture of 2012 to do it.
Dabs for the history books^^
The Karl Marx bit killed me. I'm dead now. I give the video a 10/10 overall.
Sorry that we killed you
Rip you.
I come to fight in the comments about that one game that you don't talk about.
Great video.
I love your visuals.
Thank you! Glad you are here to fight, and stayed for the visuals
Yeah, can´t believe they forgot my game smh. ^^
Turbocommunism engage! *airhorn sound*
Knowing some editing, I am once again in awe at how fast you managed to make this despite the effort it must have taken. And it conveys its messages well. Absolutely incredible work.
Hi nerd^^
Long time since the last time I saw you ^^
@@aroace7913 True, it's been while! How's it going?
@@nichtschwert3307
Pretty good so far, settled in the finished house I bought with my mom and have it now pretty close to work and finally got to hang up my ace and trans flag in my room to make it kind of offical to me that it is my home now ^^
How have you been doing ? ^^
The trick is sleeping less!
@@Transparencyboo
Rip sleep.
Another great video! Shout out to the ikea blåhaj hiding behind the chair
We hoped someone would appreciate our fellow haj.
So while I know the focus of this video is on realistic worker jobs in video games, but as for games that use mechanics as story telling, I highly recommend Yume Nikki. It's a game that has so little text that the only way to engage with the story is through imagery, symbolism, and gameplay, and I think it's the strongest example of a game doing so
Sounds interrestig.
Where is it available?
Our Yume Nikki plush awaits our inevitable video about the game.
The original Yume Nikki is available for free on steam.
@@Transparencyboo
Ah neat ^^
@@aroace7913 I don't recommend the steam version, due to a couple of translation changes from the original fan version as well as some kinda glaring audio bugs prevalent there. If you look for a website called theneitherworld.com or "Madostuki's Closet" you can find a download there to the original fan download
This isn't a game that (implicitly) critiques modernist labor, but maybe still relevant: Erkki Huhtamo did some neato Media Archeology studies on early 19th century Arcades, as overtly intended to be the premiere modernist entertainment industry for machine laborers; training them, and inducing their whole families, in the joys of fine machine operation for arbitrary coin earnings, producing nothing of immediate worth, for no one in particular. Huhtamo also charts the slow cultural-industrial process of turning this outdated mass machine labor entertainment into mass computer admin and robot control entertainment after the cybernetic age set in, during the world wars; perfect for the now predominant information/F.I.R-E and military industries.
TLDR: The whole medium itself is already the modern capitalist labor propaganda message. It was popularized to be so.
And Wilmot's Warehouse is indeed the best game ever made.
Should check this out, thanks! :)
Wow, I can't believe you PURPOSELY left out Lucas Pope's games about the mundanity and stress of work, like Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn just to annoy me!
But in all seriousness this was an amazing video that really explains the basic of labor theory in an approachable way
Thanks, glad you liked it even if we left out all the important games!
Just saw this in my recommandations and was not disappointed.
Hell yeah, you're welcome!
'all the titles we have mentioned in this video are at least in some sense meant to be fun for the player'.
...except for cart life. cart life is just pain.
Oh yeah, it would not have worked for this one. Which is why we cut it out of the bigger picture, haha.
Fantastic Video, loved every part of it! Of the portrayed jobs I have only worked in service but yeah it can definitely feel that stressful oof. And sometimes you wouldn't be surprised if a customer threw you face first into the street either.
Alicia worked in a super market and McDonalds at some point, and she is scarred forever. Play Night of the Consumers at your own risk, oooh boy that is stressful.
The worst part is how in the US they rely on tips or else they don´t get enough to survive and I mean that literally.
@@aroace7913 yikes... at least i got my eight euros something per hour and tips on top, having to live from tips alone basically sounds scary...
@@aroace7913
It is pretty horrible and I don't understand why people don't protest this.
Really great video! I really like the escalation from game to game and to more and more modern games in your analysis.
Thanks! It was a lot of fun to make, and it turned out pretty well to boot!
The pre-SMB Mario games will always be my favorites. Trans solidarity here!
🧡
Clicked for the hilarious video title, stayed for the discourse. Good stuff.
Jobification is a standard aspect of (MMO)RPG type games, in openworld actionadventures (GTA/Yakuza/Mafia, Assassin's Creed and such...), and in liveservice games (which are mostly shooters and craft survival games). The absurdity of some NPC tasking a demigod hero with menial labor, or with a grindy bit of min-max play optimization, for hours on end, in the midst of the actually meaningful apocalyptic superhero spectacle; this is quite normal in most of the big timesink games. They kind of never address the sillyness, other than with a wry shrug from the main character, but the weirdness of imposing modernist labor bits on archetypal mythology, on pure myth-meming entertainment, is almost always there.
And Wilmot's Warehouse is indeed the best game ever made.
On that note; one aspect that we did not actually talk about in this (because it deserves a video of it's own honestly) is how games like MMO's and liveservices sort of make players into labourers in the sense that they have them come back routinely every day to perform tasks in the form of daylies for example. It's kind of a jobification of the regular video game experience and I think that is worth talking about at some point.
@@Transparencyboo That'd be a cool video from you guys, yeah. You probably know this, but I'd recommend reading up on Ian Bogost's stuff about the recent gamification of actual jobs. There's not much studies on jobification, I think, but Bogost's gamification critiques get at the same stuff that jobification misconstrues about what fun, boredom, motivation, goals, and such do for games and play.
Really appreciate the recommendation! Not sure when we will tackle this, because we have so many other things we want to talk about beforehand, haha.
@@Transparencyboo Put in on a probably very long idea list : P
@@michelottens6083 Haha, oh boy is it long!
Transparency is such a great channel I wish you all had more viewers :D
Thanks, you're great too. We are lucky we have a lot of passionate people who share our stuff around and support us on Patreon. Without them we'd not even get half as many viewers
i laughed a lot watching this. Great reading of a character that to be honest, i never liked. i mean, jumping on turtles when they're just going about their day? what's up with that? XD. Lovely vid. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it, and that we could give you a good laugh too :)
The Serfs brought me here! RIktigt intressant analys! =)
Tack så mycket!
@@Transparencyboo =3
Älskar att få ta del av såna här tankar. Blir så avundsjuk på förmågan att gå in på djupet i ett ämne på det sättet du gör, jag är för ytlig för att grotta ned mig på det viset ^_^'
@@DJDiskmachine Äsch, det kräver bara lite övning, det är ju inte så att vi kunde göra det från ingenstans, haha. Mycket av det kommer från våra utbildningar och intressen. Kiki är konstnär och har läst konstutbildningar på olika håll och jag (Alicia) har filosofieexamen med inriktning på socialpsykologi. Man behöver förstås inte sådana kriterier heller för den delen, mycket handlar om att titta, stanna upp och slutligen fundera över vad det är man ser. Det fina med sådana läsningar av media är att du egentligen kan utvinna väldigt mycket beroende på hur du väljer att titta på det. Det kan vara en rolig grej liksom, behöver inte göras så stort heller :)
Någon gång kanske vi gör en video som handlar mer om hur man tar sig till väga. Kan rekommendera vår video Queering Animal Crossing för ännu en ganska enkel uppvisning hur många gör läsningar utan att kanske ens veta om det. Vad vi helst av allt vill göra är att inspirera andra att göra lite samma sak
@@Transparencyboo Haha verkligen ingen fara kompis, uppskattar ditt utförliga svar! Grattis till er framgång och all lycka i fortsättningen!
cannot unsee the sokoban tiles saying "SSSSSSSSS!"
Sokoban is actually set in a snake warehouse.
Really wish the cube head for Jeff's Warehouse was more like those creepy face skins inside Half Life 2's files.. Still got a great chuckle out of it tho!
Oh yeah, those. I didn't even think about it, lol.
Sokoban - The first strand type game.
This is probably true!
Channel blow up time now please. Commenting for algorithm maximisation. Subscribed
Here's hoping! Thanks!
Nice video engagement engagement algorithm algorithm labour for the inscrutable AI.
Feed it, my child.
Comment for the engagement ^^
Another comment for the algorithm.
One game you forgot was Path of Exile were you get heavily underpaid for the items you sell and the items you by are heavily overpriced.
Yes.
excellent video! the commentary really got me thinking,,,
in the first half of the video, it came to me that a lot of these task-based games don't really have an end state of success; it's fail or just... do more work! simple on its own, but then we got to Wilmot's Warehouse which DOES have an end state of 'success'... but like you said, it leaves open the question of "where does Wilmot go from here?"
this got me thinking about the nature of games and their avatars in this context. we're certainly controlling Wilmot or the worker in Sokoban, but are we them? or are we simply another force making demands on them to fulfill a goal in our own ends? have we become that which we despise and what does that say about control over our own lives?
making me ask so many questions shows how great this video really was! wonderful job! \^^/
Am I the only one who noticed the Nintendo 64 in the trash can?
I have NO idea what you're talking about.
@@Transparencyboo
Gotta be carefull or you might get cancelled for that haha ^^
I kinda thought this was gonna be a spoof like Hbomberguy's Sonic essay, but this maybe more interesting to me
We actually do believe that Hbomb isn't necessarily doing a spoof and rather framing his rather straight forward reading of Sonic the Hedgehog in a lot of irony and silly humor. Like, the environmentalist angle is not far fetched at all, but then of course he adds the parts about Sonic torn up by war and what not, you know? But yeah, I mean, we're overexagerate about the class traitor part too, so we are not far off from each other probably, and we should definietly be friends!
Dont forget that Sonic's canonical place of birth is Christmas islands, chosen so specifically because they wanted to bring awareness to the weapons of mass destruction and the Adventure 2 is all about governments committing war crimes against innocent people in the name of "protecting the world"
Great video once more. (Also: Time to give the algo some food, too.)
Delicious!
Yeah, more food for the algorithm^^
Extra food for the algorithm.
Great video!
You should play Say No More! 😉
We probably will at some point :)
Also how dare you forgot about satisfactory where the destruction of the nature and the complet disregard for the workers is shown^^.
You have a cool mug though if I am not mistaken.
@@Transparencyboo
That is a good point^^.
Satisfactory is a great game.
How far are you into it ?
@@annasina8608
I think like tier 5 so starting with AI stuff so still a bit to go ^^
@@aroace7913
Than you still have a bit to go and it is an amazing game.
At first i thought this is gonna be another boring as hell video about video game mechanics and learning the gameplay without tutorial and was about to skip it, thankfully i noticed the part about class traitors. Good video.
Also do you know Mackerel Phones? You guys should be friends
Heh, those videos about how games teach you how to play are not really our thing at all. We mostly like to talk about games in a different way I suppose. Glad you liked it by the way, always fun when viewers find our stuff and are pleasantly surprised. We do not personally know Mackerel Phones by the way, but yeah, we like friends - they should probably just contact us, haha.
Also extra comment for the algorithm because this video is amazing.
Comment to support the algorithm comment.
@@annasina8608
UwU for an extra comment.
@@rexrose9024
And an OwO from me.
@@annasina8608 VwV
@@rexrose9024
XwX
hi im here from misali's favorite videos thread :)
Hello, hi, welcome
About what you said with wilmot warehouse being easily changed to make an "amazon simulator" this kinda reminds of how cookie clicker which is a blatant satire of productivism led to a game like adventure capitalist which is the same thing except that despite taking the superficial appearance of satire it actually plays it 100% straight and is basically capitalist propaganda. (interesting to note that cookie clicker is free while adventure capitalist has microtransactions, which both make it clear that the satirical appearance is just for show and is disgusting in game that has system that are inherently so prone to addictive behaviors).
Yes, very true. Super good example!
Great video
You're great!
Agreed ^^
Great video ^^
Thanks!!!
Also; you're great!
@@Transparencyboo
NO U ^^
algorithm and love frens
Yeah frens ^^
LOVE!
@@Transparencyboo
And hugs ^^
Algorithm and friends.
by the way: the bus simulator you showed as an example of a game totally glorifying wage labor, is from germany. ;)
Calling Mario a Class Traiter made my day.
Let it fuel you!
Which song played ending at 2:40?
I think you mean "Fire" from Game & Watch Gallery 4, a real banger. There is a song list in order of appearance at the end of the video, right before patreon names. :)
v cool intro
Thank you! :)
Also why did you forgot minecraft a game where you destroy the enviroment for your own purposes?
It obviously deserves a video of it's own, haha. Welcome to the channel by the way! :)
@@Transparencyboo
Thanks for the warm welcome, I will check out the other videos because this one was pretty great.
Hexagonal hack? A pentagon? I am dissapointed.
Haha, we even wrote that we knew that. Got you to comment though ;)
Meow.
Thanks, we enjoy the cat sounds. You are our favorite commentor, but don't tell the other ones.
*Pat the cat* ^^
Purr.
Woof.
Could also be said that Breath of the Wild is a labor-based game, in that Link’s actual job is to be a VIP bodyguard and military commando. Only reason he’s having to scavenge and play merchant as a hobo, instead of collecting a salary (thanks to tax-payers) and being equipped by the state, is that the government, infrastructure, and industry are all in shambles after Link’s long medical leave of absence due to an on-the-job injury.
Wow, you didn't even mention the political and socioeconomic implications of going ape in Ape Escape 2? Disappointed.
Clearly deserves its own video!
Ugh, you better not be an ML
I don't even know what that means.
@@Transparencyboo tankie. Soviet simp. I got the hunch when you faux-quoted Marx
@@supersmashoriginsI wouldn't personally call us that, doesn't seem like a good way to describe us. Marxism is however a pretty common lens for which to view the world in art and social sciences, so naturally that's an angle we take here. It's hard not to when talking about working class struggles, heh. We're having fun with it though.