Organized by some third party, but hosted on Steam.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/upcoming_events/themed_sales/economy_2024
Games that are about capitalism, economy, or money grubbing are allowed in this event. It doesn't have to be real money—cookies count as a currency!—but the entire goal of the game should be to make money.
lmao at the not at all subtle beg for Cookie Clicker to be part of the fest. I hope it’s not.
Games that are mostly about trading or bartering are not eligible for this event. Sorry, this is an event for Capitalist titles only!
Trading and bartering is economy. And an economy isn’t necessarily about maximizing money earned. If they just wanted capitalist stuff they should have left the word economy out. It literally says capitalism or economy in the description.
I’m guessing it’s just brainworms who think economy = capitalism.
Anyway it would be hilarious if Workers and Resources applied to be in the fest.
Construct your own republic and transform a poor country into a rich industrial superpower!
Economic simulation. Prices of resources on the global market are changing over time as you play –one day you can sell or purchase steel for a $100 per ton, but in a few months the cost can rise to $200 or decrease to $50. The price of everything is connected to the cost of work and resources.
See, it’s about making money and economy. That’s what you were looking for, right?
Or what’s some game that critiques capitalism by having you take it to its logical end? The organizers could probably be tricked into accepting it.
Okay I'm not trying to sound like a CHUD or anything, but I can see that the value in an economy based game fest. There are lots of games where making numbers bigger, management of assets and resources, that sort of legitimate genre that is popular and fun for all sorts of players. It's an appealing and worthwhile space for play. Personally I don't dig it, but there are plenty of katz who do, and that's cool.
That said, why not just call it Economy Fest or something? Throwing in the C-Word just dilutes the scope and vision. There is more than one way to do economics, and saying Capitalism and Economy kinda says that Capitalism is the only form of economy.
An economy fest could be good.
But this is a capitalism fest. Really it’s “economy” that’s diluting the scope.
A frustratingly accurate point. It's really sad to that neoliberalism and capitalism have utterly captured the very idea of economy and economics as a whole. I think games like Roadwarden also Steam show a slightly different version of economy. Also NORCO I think shows the effects of economy in a really interesting way.
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Even with all its flaws I do like games like "No Man's Sky" and especially without its flaws "The Outer Worlds" that both at least challenge the narrative of what a space game can be.
The thing is, this is a weird liberal version that puts a direct and intrinsic emphasis on money, when an "economy" is a much broader category of systems focused on many different things. It may as well be purpose-built to project faux-liberal capitalism into both the past and future.