No Gods or Kings: Objectivism and Ayn Rand in BioShock

If you have not played this game, you must. It is easily one of the best games I have ever played. The story is really that good.

A. The activation limit in BioShock was already removed, and Ken Levine has said that once sales aren't a concern anymore, they'll (2K Games) will remove the online activation as well. So DRM isn't a huge issue here

B. It's not published by EA, but rather 2K Games. Which is owned by Take Two, not EA (which hasn't managed to acquire Take Two yet).

Then I guess you'll buy Bioshock.

And you should, too. For those of us interested in videogames as an artistic medium, this is one of the most exciting games out there.

The Economist actually used Bioshock as an analogy for one of its articles:

"IN “BIOSHOCK”, a hit video game from last year that was heavily influenced by the libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand, the main villain builds a fantastical city under the sea, where businesses can escape the stifling grasp of government. If you are an internationally minded entrepreneur looking to set up a small to medium-sized business, that is probably going a little far. But where should you set up shop?"

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=...

I think video games are held to a different (lower) standard than most other mediums with respect to storytelling. This is a shame, but there's a good reason: you can't embed a narrative inside emergent, non-formulaic gameplay. Either you tell a story with how you limit the player's actions, or you don't tell any story at all.

But even if you accept that as a fundamental limitation of the medium, most video games still have horrible stories. With the exception of Valve and a few others, it seems like no one's even trying. I don't think BioShock is the apex of video game development, but it's certainly a cut above almost everything else. That may not be much, but it's something.