Capitalism, my official review

capitalism is the new game from economics interactive it's an asymmetrical class based strategy game the sequel to the massively successful but critically panned feudalism in capitalism players engage in class warfare to seize control over the means of production a mysterious resource that allows the class which possesses it to control industry and the products of industry whichever class manages to remain in control of the means of production wins capitalism started off pretty promising but over the course of the campaign it really started to drag for me I found myself wishing I was playing a different game and while the game was certainly well polished I liked some of the luxury goods in pop culture I found myself completely taken out of the experience by excessive grinding most players in capitalism can expect to spend the majority of their time in game laboring for wages that you can exchange for various commodities that enhance gameplay as you gain levels the consumables you need like housing and food get more expensive while the wages you earn remain pretty much the same in later levels this became a huge problem I found myself losing over and over again just trying to get the basics my character needed to survive and worse yet every time you lose a run the game imposes a cool-down on wage earning on your next run called debt after a certain point I found it almost impossible to make any money at all and that was playing on the easiest difficulty white man in the first world there are two playable classes in capitalism the first and most powerful is the bourgeoisie the moneyed class unfortunately this class is locked behind a paywall so new players won't be able to access it unless they pre-ordered capitalism with generational wealth the bourgeoisie starts the game in control of the means of production and must defend it from the other class the proletariat on a typical map the bourgeoisie players are outnumbered 99 to 1 by proletariat players but they have a few abilities that give them an edge in combat firstly they can summon powerful units like the police the only units with the authority to wield the legitimate use of violence the mass media with the power to impose the confusion status effect on the proletariat and if they gather enough in game currency called capital they can pilot entire nation states I spent my entire time with the game playing as the proletariat the working class they had a lot more abilities than the bourgeoisie had and I was excited to try them out they could produce commodities they could operate and maintain machinery and you could even specialize in support classes like service work and that sounded like fun to me but unfortunately the game has some pretty severe balance issues firstly the bourgeoisie strikebreaker ability already completely neutralized the proletariat's most powerful attack the general strike if that weren't bad enough shortly into the campaign the bourgeoisie unlocks right-to-work legislation which completely disrupts any strike based attacks the bourgeoisie the ability to control the police and military gave it an almost insurmountable edge in any combat scenario I couldn't even get my units to organize let alone fight frankly this game is pay2win the proletariat is supposed to have an ability called class consciousness that lets them pool their HP health points and LP labor power but during my entire time with the game I couldn't get it to work even once I got close a few times but then the bourgeoisie players just spam - status effect called false consciousness that completely blinded my character now to be clear the bourgeoisie class is weak to cutting damage but good luck getting any of your units close enough to do any and look I know what you're gonna say you're gonna say get good noob look I'm sure there are plenty of exceptionally skilled capitalism players out there that can witness the proletariat though I think a lot of them are playing with some pretty treaty exploits nevertheless I think it's pretty clear that the bourgeoisie is completely opie I also experienced a lot of connection problems like I'd find a server that I was qualified to play on only to get bounced with an error message saying I needed four years of play time to enter an entry level server I ended up playing on mostly like puppy intern servers where I didn't get to keep any of the loot I acquired overall the game is incredibly buggy every couple of in-game years there's a boom there's a bust there's a boom there's a bust there's no period of stability you just have to hope that none of these busts wipe out your savings bourgeois players were less susceptible to this bug but they had to deal with an overflow that made them have to expand infinitely to win but that's nothing compared to one of the worst and most game breaking bugs I have ever seen in a triple-a title if just a few players start dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere they can glitch out the entire map and literally make the game completely unplayable what's worse it seems like the devs actually knew about that ahead of time first they claimed the bug just wasn't happening then they admitted they knew it was happening all along but it wasn't triggered by player action and now they admit that any player can trigger it at any time but they say it's too late to patch it out I mean Jesus Christ is anyone play testing this garbage and the story of the game makes no sense it goes to extreme lengths to justify it's ridiculous concedes you're telling me that an entire planet full of people are gonna fight two world wars to prop up this come on give me a break and oh my god the endless colonialism and imperialism yeah I get it you're so grim dark it's so real and gritty send that back to the 90s the 1890s at least they do give you the option to skip all the cutscenes so you don't have to know anything about the gruesome history of the games world in fact the game goes to pretty ridiculous lengths to hide the gruesome realities of its world and let's address the elephant in the room this game has a toxic community they don't tolerate any criticism of the game they send death squads to eliminate anyone that doesn't want to play it and they act by capitalism is the only game in the world fans of capitalism will no doubt hand wave away the game's obvious shortcomings by saying that the developers should just nerf the bourgeoisie a little as though they'll ever do that when they're responsible for the majority of micro transactions but even if they did that doesn't change how repetitive alienating and joyless the core gameplay loop is bottom line I have to give capitalism the lowest score my two toriel team allows me to give a game seven out of ten limited recommendation join me next week when I review one of the most requested games Boogerman a pick and flick adventure for the Sega Genesis a game made by interplay interactive in yellow mm-hmm no I'm recording it now capitalism No no one reviewing it the video game capitalism what no that's not right oh my god okay I love you too bye that was my producer he just told me capitalism isn't a video game it's the economic system we're living under right now based on this shocking revelation I'm forced to reevaluate my review score I now give capitalism a four point five out of ten revolution recommended hoo-boy just a short little video this week because I've been super busy and I did put out a video earlier this week so hopefully that's fine hey why don't you give me some money on patreon already all of these people did and they love doing it if you gave me money before June 1st specifically ten dollars or more and if you joined my $10 tier before June 1st and you haven't yet sent me a reference photo or some sort of short description of the doodle you want you have until next Wednesday to do that otherwise you're gonna have to wait an extra month please like and subscribe to me here on youtube.com jingle jangle that little bell because this website is absurd

Channel: undefined

Views: 88,322

Rating: 4.8954802 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: nc51tvRl8zw

Length: 8min 47sec (527 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/IIITrunks]

I've actually been thinking of looking at Capitalism through the lens of game design for the past week or so. Great to see a video mapping it out. It does come off as a goof of course but I genuinely think thinking about capitalism as a set of rules and mechanics in a game not only highlights how its broken (many gamers can spot a broken game from a mile away so its a good parallel) it also undermines the falsehood that capitalism is just natural, that we're inherently selfish and its survival of the fittest.

Its great! The analogy, not capitalism...

[u/benis-in-the-pum]

Loved it. It would have been great to hear about how socialism the game is fair and riff on that.

[u/emilyve96]

Dang, Thought Slime is on their game. Their videos require less research and production than some of the other frequent content creators in leftube, but their output of content has still been impressive.

[u/blaek_]

Slime really reaching out to speak to that most protected class: gamers.

I love this dude.

[u/VoltaireBud]

I love framing capitalism as the game we’re all playing while our social identity group status, like straight white male, is the difficulty level. I was literally just watching friends getting decimated last night in State of Decay 2 on “Nightmare Mode” and thought to myself, “Huh, this is a lot like how my past week has gone.”

[u/serfspodcast]

It's the game Destiny doesn't realize he's always playing

[u/Zimmerzom]

Awesome video. Minor nitpick - are there any sound engineers in here? I'm not sure how to describe it but the audio quality sounds bad on most of TS's videos. Am I imagining things?

[u/voice-of-hermes]

Nice!

Gamers, rise u...oh god, we're fucked.

[u/GolfBaller17]

A reminder to read theory and engage in direct action. Don't let consumption of YouTube videos be the extent of your radicalization.