Fail-topia

* See also Failtopia
* See also Bioshock Illogic
* See also Infinite BS
* See also Crapsack_World
== "Fail-topia" or how to ignore illogic and unreality when making money for creating/selling a game : ==
 AKA Faux-Topia 
"A Fictional Place purposely BADLY designed/contrived by its creator to FAIL or be Dystopic as a basis for a story plot. " ( Example - Bad Fantasy with which Levine Went Off the Rails for that Third Game. ) A Setting can be created to represent a failure, but it can also be done clumsily/lazily with contrived reasons which fail various tests of logic.
Exponentially BAD when the game supposes itself to be HISTORIC/Based-On-History/Otherwise-Based-On-Real-World, BUT it has many things which do NOT make sense in the supposed context and ignore things which should be there. Places/Societies can FAIL well enough within REALISTIC contexts and for real reasons, it only takes some care to provide plausibility.
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Failtopia ...
A game plot setting. "A Place Forced to Fail by the Writers" ... That's it.
They (the writers), for Rapture, completely avoided the logical/realistic counter-balances ( and general societal mechanisms ) that such a social philosophy does have to handle such issues/problems. There would be plenty of laws and social conventions AND traditions/expectation. What ignorance, to claim the place, an modern urban environment/society, which had managed to stay together/intact in some alleged state of 'Anarchy' for its first 10+ years ???
But then, it is merely a setting/terrain created for a Shooter Game Slaughter, with alot of over-contrived magical 'STORY'.
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The BioShock Failtopia :
As I've said many times : BioShock had alot of HYPE about being 'more' (storywise), but in the end it is really mostly still a Shoot-em-up Slaughter-fest game. 
And NOW witness Infinite BS to see a further degradation as they spin their bad fantasy and horribly contrive plot horribly contrive - Look up the definition of "deus ex machina" -- https://www.bing.com/search?q=deus+ex+machina .
Maybe most of the Players would never notice the deficiencies, but having such deficits is not the goal for anyone wanting to create a 'Great' or 'Epic' game. Rare enough are Epic games. BioShock Infinite simply was NOT one of them. ( Remember that "Game of the Year" depends on what all other games exist in the industry, and is created by compromised ratings from brown-nosing game magazines/reviewers ).
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Someone Said :
" By populating a city with ambitious experts, opportunists, geniuses, and breakthrough artists, Ryan set up a top-heavy class system. Many Rapture citizens felt that essential jobs such as food processing, cleaning, and simple maintenance were beneath them, which caused dissatisfaction when these jobs were neglected. "
An easy judgement about Rapture to propose, but avoiding reality ( the actual story situation with an assumptionn of 'how the real world works' Rapture was a sci-fi city with undersea technology plausible for its time, with much of its society being normal and resembling those times. THAT all was to be the foil against which the "BIO" "SHOCK" of ADAM was to play out. ).
Alot of these " essential jobs" are actually ( as said ) ESSENTIAL, and since they NEED to 'get done' ( and can only be 'neglected' so much ) THEN someone Offers more money and someone else WILL do the work for more money. It is part of the balancing system under Capitalism. 
The 'Toilet Scrubber' will get paid more, and the job will attract someone to do it ( since there is no slavery or bonded servitude in Rapture ). You cannot force people to do the work for low pay (Except by criminals like Fontaine who apparently did coerce his employees - something which was far too contrived in what the story said he got away with. Fontaine just supposedly did it alot and got away with it -- Instead of getting a shotgun blast to the face some night in revenge by an abused employee or their relatives. Or being publicly denounced and prosecuted or boycotted/shunned in a place too small Rapture pop[ulation somehwer in the 20000 range as pper the estimate of the Novel author John Shirley to dodge the crimes.
In a technical place like Rapture, it may rather have been a case of Technology eliminating jobs ( the clever Mechanical Toilet Scrubber, where one 'operator/repair guy' now does the drudgery work of dozens of manual laborers ). As mentioned in-game : When Construction largely ended, and put alot of those workers 'Out of Work', which was what perhaps actually lead to the EARLIER economic distress ( ~1952, which BTW the city weathered successfully ). But then, that kind of situation was nothing new on The Surface World the Rapturites came from --- AND remember : THESE Rapture people were supposed to be more the 'Go Getters', 'Innovators', etc ... AND would be more willing to retrain and relearn and reapply themselves to NEW jobs and opportunities. 
Instead, the writers make believe Rapture is suddenly filled with Parasite Dross and Drones, and ready to leap at "Free" handouts and to 'Protest' their not being allowed to be Parasites. They so quickly are buying into Socialism ( WHICH the people in Rapture supposedly came to get away from ). The majority of the people ( the ones who agreed with and supported Ryan and his Philosophy ) are never much heard from. We actually are just hearing the whinings of a small minority, 'played up' as if they were the majority. But then, you need an 'Atlas' for the plot. So Presto-Chango, Fontaine becomes Atlas - some 'great rebel leader', vying with Ryan for Power and able to inspire ridiculously stupid/unwarranted treason and betrayal, when he really would have been ridiculed and ignored, OR if committing crimes stepped upon by the populace enforcing Laws.
Again ( as I've said before ), ALL of what we get in the game is facilitating Rapture being a contrived Failtopia -- A setting for gaming Mass-Slaughter done by the Player - a Shoot-em-up game with cardboard cutout 'enemies'. And when it comes to interfering with 'the writer's game plot/story', THEN logic/reason/reality are NOT to intrude or to be of any priority.
Infinite BS then later builds an even more absurd Failtopia - wholly created to be one with the most absurd circumstances.
THE GAME SETTING - Whole Thing a Contrived Failtopia :
Ryan SERIOUSLY not wanting Parasites in his City : Selection would be designed for most people to NOT be the 'wrong type' - unionists, communists, socialists and New Dealers, government bureaucrats, Stalin and the Pope need not apply.
Fontaine/Sofia Lamb (both Master Parasites) seem to So Easily convince people that they should deserve/demand parasitic privileges -- And of course lots and lots managed to easily 'Fall For It' ( or so it is portrayed - except we actually are only allowed to hear mostly anecdotal whiners, and NOT what the majority of Rapture's Citizens had to say or thought ).
Rapture's City Plan would have made allowances for the City Construction ending. Construction Workers of course IN THE PLOT somehow turn out to be skill-less, power-less, unprepared, ready to fail and 'fall into the clutches' of the Parasite Masters' easy-promise-making hands. In reality, those Construction Workers would have been more like technicians than hand-laborers. Using Prefabs placed alot of Rapture's 'construction' at the Surface. SO, many of the construction 'workers' did not have to come down below to live in Rapture ( and many might never even get a glimpse of it ).
Timeframe 1952 - 1958 - the Post-Construction period - Things are back to normal after economic distress (isolation, bankruptcies, supposed bank run, etc ...) - with people adjusted/retrained ( there wasn't today's automatic expectation of a welfare state, and people did not WANT to be 'bums' or be subject to government meddling/handouts ).
Rapture would have an increasing population, as people had children ( ratio debatable, but by 'Kashmir' they had 13 years of population growth ). Growth and job opportunities. Self-Sufficiency likewise would bring business opportunities to those who were innovative.
People came to Rapture because of a likely future of World Nuclear War ? Still Ryan wouldn't have let in anyone who looked to be a potential parasite to poison his City. ( He'd probably say something like "leave them in the world they created. We'll have no Rats abandoning their sinking ship HERE!". ) 
Fontaine could NOT have been much like Al Capone in such a small place (20 K - 40 K people ?). It was so easy for the PLOT to say that the efforts to prevent that Smuggling operation ( generating the big money which allowed the subsequent ADAM monopoly ... ) failed completely -- for years. Rapture is really such a small place and it is hard to cover up things like that. Fontaine coercing/extorting his workers into silence ? - Rapture's Newspapers would have been all over it ( murdering and brutalizing people WOULD still be a crime ), and it just took one 'tough' determined person to put a bullet through Fontaine's head, or an anonymous letter to Ryan with sufficient evidence ( BUT instead these 'workers' were conveniently all sheep ).
As I've said - to have the game's mass-slaughtering justified you just needed any old failed environment ( doing it convincingly/plausibly is somewhat harder skill-wise to do - requires more effort and intent ).
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Infinite BS - Not Sci-Fi, and Not Even Good Fantasy :
Classic Science Fiction stories propose some technological change, which then affects society and individuals. Fantasy is a unreal backdrop used to demonstrate some interesting situation worth considering as a story.
OK, so Infinite BS has Floaty Shit(tm), Time Travel and some kind of godhood imposed on a person ( THAT's by no means IN "science" ). But really, what affect did Infinite's pretend things had on the people ? The things we see which are Dystopic, they could also easily exist on the ground, in the normal world minus the lame metaphysics.
* Its Despotic, and a Police State - on the ground in that (and our) World there was/is tons of that.
* Its Racist/Bigoted - plenty of that on the ground, everywhere.
* Its Theocratic - NOT flying up in the air doesn't stop that ( just read the news today ... )
* Its Crony Capitalism ( An attempted dig at Laissez-Faire economy, except its mostly a controlled monopoly... seemingly by Fink ) - Look around you pilgrim (I mean YOU). Exploited workers ... Yeah that's NEW in the World -- NOPE.
* Its full of Inequality and Power for the Few -- Welcome to the rest of the World.
* Its Isolation allowing the Extremism - You can do all this on the ground (YOU Never heard of "Heart of Darkness" ? or that Soviet Union place ? Or the Jim Jones Cult in the middle of Guiana ? )
SO what changes to Society (Columbia's) does this FloatyShit(tm) cause that's different ?
* Its a rebellious counter culture -- Reactionary - but reverting to what exactly ? Business as usual in a genteel small town setting, but then having a massive paramilitary presence, and war machines parading through it as if 'ordinary'). No 'floating'/Timetravel/Godhood is required for that.
* Its America 1900, enabled. Sorry No. Only a Retarded Dustbunny would think so. Its an copycat Illogical Dystopia made for a shoot-em-up-game's excuse for a story setting.
* Modern Outlook of that Age ("Look !! We use technology !!"). That was happening in the rest of America too without 'Quantumz' at all. In Columbia the 'Quantumz' advances are barely used - where clever people's Visions of 'what might be' might have been built/shown in the game. Strange to make parts of the place look like Coney Island, but again that's hardly anything substantial ( something convenient to copy clone ). "The modern becomes ordinary", but look how little they've done with it - there things done beyond the rest of America of that time.
* Easier Production and More Prosperity ? - serfdom and company town mentality are shown instead. Slave revolt threatens.
* If anything, Floaty Shit(tm) should have given people Mobility, and everyone who DIDN'T like the place would have long previously left (( Oops, there goes the reason for most of the plot's setting )).
* You still largely had 2 Dimensional Movement for Player actions, and any new possible mobility was NOT created (handy to allow the Player to bypass more violence, or to more wondrously explore ). (( What would be left of the game if that was possible ?? Clever Sneak-Past situations are actually harder to program than arranging those mindless tactic-less shootouts Infinite BS was full of. ))
* Oppression is shown in an "After School Special" milk-toast mode - All watered down and thinned out to be inoffensive and non-committal (("Edgy", only like a lump of PlayDoh)).
* The Quantum-caused "Tear" stuff (those side-effect of Floaty Shit(tm)) and their Holy Lamb-Demon should have made people fearful to the point of Iconoclasm. Instead, they stroll around unconcerned (even when a heavily armed outsider rushes past them). Their 'safe little world' is threatened, and the White populace should swarm out like ants, with their guns. But no, 'safe' evil Police and Security Monstrosities are there for the defense (( and available for the 'Hero's mass-slaughtering game-fun goodness )).
* Its "Frankenstein" (man trying to play god) -- Oops, no, Elizabeth hardly plays the part except in a few Canned Scenes. Most of what danger/change Elizabeth represents hasn't happened yet ( and actually was removed from the game when it was too hard for them to do -- GO See those older Promotional Trailers ). (( BTW, one US nuclear-tipped missile could take out all of Columbia, from the late 1950s on, and well before it started destroying NYC. WW2 technology could easily have done the same. So NO flying 'looney bin' to threaten our times. )).
* The Story is supposed to be about Redemption ( the setting is immaterial to that concept ), but going back in time and using suicide is posed as 'the answer' ( and repetitive mass murdering by the Player happens all along its path, which apparently seems OK to the writers ). BTW, if you didn't realize, going to another dimension to switch-to/get a better/convenient situation ( done several times in the plot ) DOES NOT fix the dimension you left/abandoned.
* The Floaty Shit(tm) is pretty and different (needed to sell a game), but it somehow is supposed to be 'BioShock' there ???? ( The 'BIOSHOCK' Game Branding really being the biggest factor in sales for this thing ). The 'Wonder City in the Clouds' might as well have been a cardboard cutout (wasn't it ?) as far as its importance to the story. It also could have been much further (imaginatively) utilized to make Columbia far more 'Wondrous' -- Instead of just some transplanted 1900 ordinariness, and some pretty half-cloud-hidden backgrounds.
* Physics Shock - WTF does Quantum Particles have to do with 'Bio' anything ??? It is all just a Sellout by Levine&Co of OUR game. Magic Beans would have been MORE 'Bio', and AS Scientifically realistic as what's found in the game.
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Even in Fantasy, the MAGIC would be the thing that warps/shifts Society, but as demonstrated above, very little of the Society in Columbia was really warped in any significant/different way in Infinite BS by THE TECHNOLOGY.
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