Your fast thinking brain most likely finished the title of this post before it was even over, but for the unfamiliar the last word is supposed to be “Bootstraps.” Bootstrapping was a popular idea where I grew up. It is a metaphor used to convey that if you want to improve your life, then you just need to try harder. It is a context blind statement that assumes that if you give enough effort, then you can be better. Not just can be, but more accurately, will be better. In other words, what you get out of life is based on merit and merit alone. A Meritocracy if you will.
Disregarding the physical limitations of bootstrapping, the sentiment behind the message is deceptively simple.
Skill + Effort = Reward
Christopher A. Paul, in his book The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games: Why Gaming Culture Is the Worst, critiques this way of thinking by taking a hard look at the actual context we live in. In addition to his general critique of meritocracy, Paul goes on to scrutinize how meritocratic systems have infested the world of video games and why that’s an issue.
What is Meritocracy?
I’m going to back up a bit now. Though the ‘bootstrap’ introduction answers some of this, Paul goes a bit further with it. Paul argues that Meritocracy is a system that relies on the merit of an individual to determine what their station in life should be. It is important to note that meritocracy assumes everyone starts at the same place.
Paul compares meritocracy with aristocracy, a system where your station in life is predetermined by the circumstances of your birth. Between these two options, meritocracy looks much more promising as there is a theoretic ability to increase your station in life through merit. However, this ignores the fact that some people are born with advantages and others with disadvantages. Children born into families that have already earned merit in some way are already set up to have a higher chance of success. Not because of merit, but because of the circumstances of their birth. Sound familiar?
“In the case of China, meritocracy begets aristocracy and vice versa. Meritocratic norms become more prominent in a rebellion against the aristocracy, but those meritocratic practices eventually end up producing their own aristocracy.” (p.31)
In other words, meritocracy may look to oppose the idea of a ruling elite, but in practice will eventually create a ruling elite.
(Pictured: Obi Wan Kenobi shouting "You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them!")
So why does it matter that we talk about meritocracy?
Let me hit some highlights real quick from Paul:
Meritocracy has become so normalized that we often do not realize that we live in a meritocratic society. (p.29)
Meritocracy will fail when (not if) people stop focusing on merit and start focusing on inheritance. (p.32)
Those benefiting from a meritocratic system will defend it from those who do not. (p.33)
So we have an invisible system that will fail, and those the system favors will defend it. Hence the once popular metaphor dealing with your bootstraps. A system that may work in a vacuum, but does not take into consideration the context.
“In the most constructive case, meritocracy enables individuals to be judged based on the quality of their contributions to society. However, that case is overly optimistic and deliberately ignores the structural constraints that ensure the inequality of opportunity routinely faced by marginalized groups.” (p.45)
(Pictured, a knight with a new sword saying, "Townsfolk it is I! After questing hard I have earned this legendary sword! It really goes to show how hard work-" only to be cut off by a person nearby saying, "Didn't your dad get you that quest?" Source: Eldercactus)
What does this have to do with video games?
Chapter One starts off with a heavy dose of philosophy, but if you recall, the title of this book centers around video games. Paul asserts that the video game culture and industry is dominated by meritocracy practices. He uses a plethora of popular video games to illustrate his points. Taking common systems such as rank and level systems and tying them into meritocracy, by pointing out that they inherently serve to separate those who have skills and those who do not. He also picks out how contemporary games build off each other, ensuring some baseline of transferable skills between games, which favors people who have played video games for longer. This is where things start getting imbalanced in the video game culture. However, it goes further with similar narration, characters, control schemes, etc. All of this is built off a history of a specific target audience, giving that target audience a head start in future video games. This head start leads to a stratification of people who play video games and legitimizes their way of thinking. It creates an elite class.
“Being successful in a game depends on the economic ability to pay for games and systems, the cultural permission or en-couragement to play games, and the good fortune to find game narratives, characters, and genres that are at least somewhat relatable or interesting.” (p.53)
All this is to say that the video game industry and culture as a whole exhibit and encourage meritocracy practices which have privileged a certain group of people, white males in particular, into normalizing toxic cultural practices within video games.
So what good does studying this do? Paul concludes Chapter One with,
“Better understanding the status quo is a key step in breaking the toxic culture in and around games, which requires examining relevant work in game studies and analyzing the culture around video games, particularly its most virulent aspects.”
While Chapter One was mostly definitions and examples, Chapter Two he goes more in-depth and looks at the underlying toxicity of the gamer culture. Click here to read what another student said about chapter two.
The original piece on Meritocracy was a bit dense, but you did a great job splitting it apart and highlighting some of the most important pieces. Perhaps the most important piece is how you highlighted how context and study are important or else it's super easy for the system to seem completely invisible.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I was completely oblivious to this "invisible" system, even when I first started playing. I often found myself quitting games since I felt like they weren't fun, but I commonly came back after I gained more general experience with games, realizing it was perhaps the lack of support from others around me. Once I had more confidence in myself and other skills to rely on my own, it was a much easier experience.
I feel it's even worse today, for example in World of Warcraft, if you want to join a group to partake in a large encounter, you generally either need to pay large sums of in-game or real money, or already have high scores and lots of experience tracked by algorithms online. You really can't win unless you're already winning.
Then, as I see new games try to enter the market, they're commonly made by those who were already senior designers and developers at older companies, and they first look for feedback from the most well-known or highest ranked players. This could be streamers who often have a lot of support, both financially and socially, to play games and even professional esports players. Many of these games often are based about individual skill, but all of this together worries me that just like you said, "meritocracy may look to oppose the idea of a ruling elite, but in practice will eventually create a ruling elite", and then result in them catering new game experiences to more of the "ruling elite."