New Spirit of Capitalism

The industrial revolution created a new spirit of capitalism, where corporate interests lurk behind computer games, so they are used not simply to distract people, but to make them into consumers. Computer games have become mass market commodities central to the global culture industry. Kirkpatrick describes this industry as detrimental because, “individuals are far more dependent on the objects they are involved in. We define ourselves more than ever through our purchases and gadgets” (Kirkpatrick, 2013, p.20). The commercialization or game production leads to a degraded product because computer games have the capacity to be something much better, more beneficial to humanity, but capitalist commercialization inhibits and distorts that potential just to gain more profit. 

For example, Kirkpatrick introduces the example of the Nintendo as a console manufacturer that dominates the global culture industry and uses corporate interests to make people into consumers. He explains that, “Nintendo imposed restrictions on which firms they would allow to make their games for their new console, the Nintendo Entertainment System” (Kirkpatrick, 2013, p. 102), which effectively prevented non-approved developers from gaining access to the console market. In Electronic Frontiers: Branding the “Nintendo Generation,” Stephen Kline introduces Nintendo’s “digital lock-and-key” tactic as he states, “ it was impossible to play cartridges that had not been approved by Nintendo on the NES. Nintendo justified this device as a block to counterfeiters” (Kline, 2013, p111), which effectively enforced Nintendo’s ability to control the software side of the video game business. Nintendo’s use of branding, also explained by Kirkpatrick and Kline, was a way to control consumers because “in truth, mainstream customers like to be ‘owned’- it simplifies buying decisions, improves the quality and lowers the cost of the whole product ownership” (Kline, 2013, p.125). Overall, computer games have created a new spirit of capitalism that has led to more control over consumers in the global culture industry.