To be honest, my claim was a bit hyperbolic, because essentially Cyberpunk as a genre is anti-capitalist, just CDPR doesn’t really want it to be.
It boils down to how you want to view this game and art in general, with the original intent of developers or without it, making assumptions based on the contents of the story. And I rarely can choose the latter.
The whole game tries to tell you that corporations are the main (and only) issue, Johnny Silverhand literally says: “I’ve declared war not because capitalism’s thorn in my side…”, implying that it’s not capitalism that he has problems with, but Corpos who: “Have long controlled our lives…”
But I don’t view anti-corporatism as a synonym to anti-capitalism, and neither does CDPR. That’s why they chose to paint a Marxist ideology as complete nonsense of some ai bot fortune teller (I’m talking about Bartmoss collective) and that’s why there’s not a word from Johnny criticising the system that let corporations become as powerful as they are today.
To be fair - Johnny Silverhand we meet is a heavily modified verison. Both memories, personality and (possibly) appearance are altered by someone, who may or may not be Yorinobu Arasaka.
Then there is base tabletop, creator of which (M. Pondsmith) is said to favour Nomads.
To be honest, my claim was a bit hyperbolic, because essentially Cyberpunk as a genre is anti-capitalist, just CDPR doesn’t really want it to be.
It boils down to how you want to view this game and art in general, with the original intent of developers or without it, making assumptions based on the contents of the story. And I rarely can choose the latter.
The whole game tries to tell you that corporations are the main (and only) issue, Johnny Silverhand literally says: “I’ve declared war not because capitalism’s thorn in my side…”, implying that it’s not capitalism that he has problems with, but Corpos who: “Have long controlled our lives…”
But I don’t view anti-corporatism as a synonym to anti-capitalism, and neither does CDPR. That’s why they chose to paint a Marxist ideology as complete nonsense of some ai bot fortune teller (I’m talking about Bartmoss collective) and that’s why there’s not a word from Johnny criticising the system that let corporations become as powerful as they are today.
Not only a great response to my question, but also a wonderful exposition on the nuance of this matter. Good stuff comrade!
Thank you, I’m really glad you liked my response)
To be fair - Johnny Silverhand we meet is a heavily modified verison. Both memories, personality and (possibly) appearance are altered by someone, who may or may not be Yorinobu Arasaka.
Then there is base tabletop, creator of which (M. Pondsmith) is said to favour Nomads.