Department of English

This thesis attempts to connect Marxian criticism to games studies by analyzing job simulator games and their enforcement of capitalistic tenets. I will argue that the ludic and semi-narrative functions of job simulator games reinforce capitalism’s tenets of efficient accumulation, disavowal, and the need for protective arms of the capitalist state. To argue this claim, I use a variety of studies covering games and Marxian critique. My foundational text of study is Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism which provides definitions of these tenets and helps identify my claims of how these games propagate a lacking alternative to capitalism. The games I will be focusing are TCG Card Shop Simulator (OPNeon Games 2024), Thief Simulator 2 (CookieDev 2023), and Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (Aesir Interactive 2022). The studies and works I include are Frederick Jameson’s theories on displacement and reification, Aubrey Anable’s theory on affect, Jesper Juul’s theories on game and real-world spaces, Patrick Jagoda’s theories on the experimental nature game design inhabits, Kunzelman’s potential labor from The World Is Born From Zero, and Chu’s definition of cognitive estrangement all show the gamification of labor and the blurred lines between the real and digital worlds we now inhabit. This thesis continues their conversations, and creates a framework to see how video games introduce and propagate capitalist ideologies with or without intentional development.