Bioshock...again... [MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!]

Once again, I will be analyzing the popular video game, Bioshock. The game is rated M for Mature, which means that technically the target audience is anyone over the age of seventeen, however, the game is likely aimed at mostly teenaged to adult males. The meanings behind many parts of this game are about as deep as the location in which it takes place: The bottom of the ocean. Rapture is the name of the secret city constructed at the bottom of some remote part of the Atlantic Ocean, since after all, to quote the character I'll be discussing, “It was not impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea. It was impossible to build it anywhere else”.

Andrew Ryan is the character responsible for creating the city of Rapture, as it was his vision to live in a world without inhibition. His philosophies greatly challenge the status quo, especially considering that the city was supposedly created some time within the 1940's and 1950's. Ryan envisioned a world where science would not be held back by morals, society would not be held back by government, and the mind would not be held back by religious debate. Obviously, in one way or another, all of these concepts contradict what just about everyone in the world believes (whether they believe in morals, government, religion, or some combination of the three), so naturally a great controversy can be generated by his ideals. It seems logical to create a world such as this, but upon playing Bioshock and finding the City of Rapture in ruins about ten or twenty years after its founding, it is clear that such ideals could prove disastrous (at least in the eyes of game writers and developers).
In a world without government (and certainly without taxation), everyone could be free to earn exactly as much money and status as they deserve without anything to hold them back. Ryan believes that “every man should be entitled to the sweat of his brow”, which may seem very appealing to many people.
There are many rules and regulations regarding the conduction of experiments and scientific research. It could very well be argued that these regulations put a serious hold on the potential growth of scientific knowledge for the world, but these holds do not exist in the city of Rapture. In real life, great strides were made in the world of science before rules were put in place to regulate scientific research (not to say that great strides are still being made). Bioshock challenges this by arguing that without these rules, remarkable discoveries could be made (and in the city of Rapture, they are).
Who knows what the world would be like without any religions, but in Bioshock, the lack of religion is supposedly beneficial for all citizens of Rapture. There are “no gods or kings, only man”, and that is the way that Rapture functions. The Great Chain (not to be confused with The Great Chain of Being) is supposed to be the only thing that joins human beings together. It is considered the force that all people are a part of, and by joining together for a common cause, they may pull the chain in the right direction. The Great Chain is somewhat of a religious symbol in itself, but it still denies the existence of any gods or other deities.

Data collection and distribution

I'm not saying much that hasn't already been said, but obviously many people are unaware of what is happening to them every day in terms of internet trafficking, advertisements, and privacy. With the rate at which technological advancements are being made, it is a bit frightening to think about what might be possible twenty years from now, considering where we're at already in terms of privacy violation. Essentially anyone that wants to use the internet is completely at the mercy of data collection, since a great number of sites sell data to other companies, and because this data is collected and sold without so much as a brief notice to consumers, many people are not even aware that it is happening to them every time they search for something on Google or make a purchase on some other site (among other things). With the data collected, companies are able to make advertisements more specific to individuals, but where they can't do that, they use their standard sale of “pleasure” to apply to a general audience. This constitutes things like comedy and sex and other appeals to emotions through advertisements, which could potentially be combined with the highly personalized advertisements that are sent to people via the internet (if that has not been done already). I wouldn't be surprised if televised advertisements were somehow linked to the internet to appeal to the interests of individual consumers as well. People are incredibly intelligent, so I'm sure that eventually they'll find a way to penetrate more than just the internet with their data collection and distribution. Televised programming reflects harmful stereotypes all the time, so it wouldn't be difficult to find the people most susceptible to this and market to them more specifically, based on what they watch on television. And it doesn't have to stop at television. Any sort of records of people's history could be documented and used later to determine how to best market to that individual, and there are endless forms of media and advertising that could be used to reach that individual.

Bioshock Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbRUTSeafcc

Here is a link to a commercial for a game called Bioshock Infinite that came out a while ago. This isn't the most relevant commercial anymore but it works. My initial response to this advertisement is excitement, because I have played the first games in this series and I thought they were great. Of course, if I hadn't played the first two games and I was not familiar with the series, then excitement would still be the emotion that the advertisement is attempting to evoke in the viewer. The music and the action are both exciting, peaking the viewer's interest. A line in the song is even “Stand tall for the people of America”, which may even evoke subconscious some patriotic emotions, or something of that sort. The ad is fairly short, running at only about one minute, and the message seems to be fairly clear. Developers want people to buy their product. Spreading the word through an advertisement obviously gets more people ready to buy a product, leading to more sales and more profit. The ad does initially make me feel like I need to buy the game, but that is mainly because I know from past experience that it should be of high quality, based on my knowledge of the past games. If I had never seen any of these games before, however, I am not sure how I might react to this ad. Only after some thought could I decide that I don't need the game as much as I first thought, but I would imagine if I had more money, I might not be able to think as clearly before making the purchase.