Saturday, January 10, 2009
Left 4 Dead: A Microcosm of Politics
L4D is a game that focuses on cooperative play and the political experiences I’ve seen while playing are staggering.
I’m pretty good at first-person shooters and I know L4D pretty well. As such, I often end up leading my team. I’m not a particularly active leader, since I feel uncomfortable experimenting with tactics with people I don’t know and will probably never meet again. However, I often offer advice and bark orders into the microphone and strangely enough, most of my orders are followed.
It’s odd, how many times in our life do we just go into a setting and someone takes command? Cashiers are a pretty good example, whenever we go into a restaurant or store, these thankless servants attempt to maintain order among hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people and just like in L4D, sometimes a dick gets in the checkout line.
Since L4D is often a public game and the players can come and go as they please, you can find yourself fighting a horde of zombies with someone who’s a complete ass. All he does is complain, yell at people, and makes it pretty difficult to be around him. These guys destroy the group dynamic and rarely offer anything constructive. In a way, he’s a lot like a blogger, only he has a shotgun and thus we tolerate him.
Perhaps the most significant moment in my memory was when another leader figure was in a game I was playing. Only this leader sucked. He kept leading charges through side corridors looking for gear we didn’t really need and all the time zombies kept coming at us while we rarely got closer to our objective. How often in life do political leaders keep making terrible discussions and wasting our resources while various issues keep coming up? Yet, I didn’t get involved. Like Hobbes, I figured some form of government was better than none. We were getting towards our objective, be it slowly. A democracy would have taken too long to establish and L4D often designs their levels to make group decisions unnecessary. Establishing a democratic system may have been a total waste of time anyway since the US democracy often can’t get participation so why should my game be any different? I could have tried to wrestle for control of power, but really, what was the point? The conflict would have distracted too much from the zombies and the game would be over in a hour.
Who knew zombies were such political animals?
I’m pretty good at first-person shooters and I know L4D pretty well. As such, I often end up leading my team. I’m not a particularly active leader, since I feel uncomfortable experimenting with tactics with people I don’t know and will probably never meet again. However, I often offer advice and bark orders into the microphone and strangely enough, most of my orders are followed.
It’s odd, how many times in our life do we just go into a setting and someone takes command? Cashiers are a pretty good example, whenever we go into a restaurant or store, these thankless servants attempt to maintain order among hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people and just like in L4D, sometimes a dick gets in the checkout line.
Since L4D is often a public game and the players can come and go as they please, you can find yourself fighting a horde of zombies with someone who’s a complete ass. All he does is complain, yell at people, and makes it pretty difficult to be around him. These guys destroy the group dynamic and rarely offer anything constructive. In a way, he’s a lot like a blogger, only he has a shotgun and thus we tolerate him.
Perhaps the most significant moment in my memory was when another leader figure was in a game I was playing. Only this leader sucked. He kept leading charges through side corridors looking for gear we didn’t really need and all the time zombies kept coming at us while we rarely got closer to our objective. How often in life do political leaders keep making terrible discussions and wasting our resources while various issues keep coming up? Yet, I didn’t get involved. Like Hobbes, I figured some form of government was better than none. We were getting towards our objective, be it slowly. A democracy would have taken too long to establish and L4D often designs their levels to make group decisions unnecessary. Establishing a democratic system may have been a total waste of time anyway since the US democracy often can’t get participation so why should my game be any different? I could have tried to wrestle for control of power, but really, what was the point? The conflict would have distracted too much from the zombies and the game would be over in a hour.
Who knew zombies were such political animals?
Labels: group dynamics, l4d, left 4 dead, politics, zombies
# posted by MaximumTacolord @ 9:59 PM 
