Play & Pay——The Capitalist Evolution of Video Games

Keywords: 

Capitalism, Game Narrative, Platform Economy, Commodification, Immersion, Microtransaction, Media Critique, Interactivity

Medium:

Physical exhibits (game consoles, magazines, hardware)

Interactive installations (playable video games)

Fictional texts (fake newspapers, fabricated game notes and in-game recharge records for research purposes)

Spatial scenography (reconstructed living rooms/game rooms from different decades)

Sound design (simulated ambient noise from different gaming eras)

Costs – This must be reflected in the budget.

Venue: 

A two bedroom unfurnished flat in Edinburgh on zoopla（Mcdonald Road, Edinburgh EH7）
（This is a public rental flat with no furniture. With minimal setup, it can be turned into an exhibition space.
Curating in Edinburgh does not require legal permission, but confirmation from the landlord is necessary.）https://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/69761818/

Duration:

workshop twice daily, each session lasting 4 hours.

Contents：

Room 1: Playroom as History This room is divided into four corners by translucent curtains, each representing a specific gaming space from the past. Visitors walk through different time periods, encountering the material culture, visual language, and social atmosphere of historical gaming.

• Corner 1 – 1970s Living Room: Featuring early home consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey or Atari 2600, accompanied by retro furniture and magazines, this space evokes the origins of home gaming in the West.
• Corner 2 – 1980s Living Room: A typical 1980s middle-class living room with a Nintendo Famicom or Sega Master System, reflecting the rise of genre-driven gaming and media convergence.
• Corner 3 – Soviet Youth Club Gaming Corner: A rare look at the underground and state-sponsored gaming culture of the Soviet Union, with local electronic games and arcade-inspired devices such as the Elektronika series.
• Corner 4 – 1990s–2000s Gaming Den: A dimly lit, PC-and-console-heavy room capturing the LAN-party and console war era. Posters, game discs, and early internet aesthetics represent the pre-digital platform fragmentation.

Room 2: The Capitalist Now This room dramatizes the split between two dominant gaming environments of the 2020s: the performative spectacle of esports and the minimalist, mobile-centered individual consumption.

• Left Side – The Esports Arena: Decorated with tournament posters, looping highlight reels, and stadium-like seating. It reflects the corporatization of competitive gaming and its transformation into a media-industrial complex.
• Right Side – The White Cube: A minimalist space with a single desk housing a PC and PS5, and a couch designated for mobile gaming. The clinical aesthetic emphasizes the privatization and hyper-streamlined logic of today’s gaming consumption.

Room 3: Workshop for Play & Thought A flexible space for participatory programs including public workshops, critical play sessions, panel talks, and speculative design labs. This room is intended to transform visitors from passive observers into active thinkers and co-creators of gaming futures.

Calculate Your Gaming Expenses and Digital Assets

Re-Trial of Landmark Legal Cases in Video Games

Open Conversation with Game Industry Professionals (Tentative)

Curatorial Statement 

Video games have never been neutral media—especially when situated within specific social systems. Whether it’s killing enemies, leveling up, looting, or freely trading, building, and capturing attention in virtual cities, these actions mirror the logic and operations of capitalism in the real world.

The exhibition Play and Pay: The Capitalist Evolution of Video Games focuses on how video games have been shaped and regulated by the processes of global capitalism—and how, in turn, they actively participate in shaping our cultural perceptions and modes of consumption.

The exhibition is structured around living rooms/game rooms from different decades, using gaming consoles, magazines, playable video games, fictional newspapers, and archival materials to guide visitors through the evolution from arcade culture to today’s immersive AAA titles. Visitors are invited to explore how narratives have been disciplined through genre and commodification, how hardware has shifted from exclusive consoles to cross-platform ecosystems to maximize profit, and how game systems—through loot boxes, microtransactions, and virtual economies—construct a closed world where “to play is to consume.”

Accessibility:

Soundproofing; accessible pathways; games (colorblind assistance, audio assistance).

Artists/Artworks/Ethics/Budget/Funding/Partners and Sponsors will be added in future updates to this post.

Some Speculative Points for my SICP / Beichen Huang / Curating (2024-2025)[SEM2] by is licensed under a