Mike Pondsmith: “‘Cyberpunk’ is a warning, not an aspiration”

I think this take is not particularly insightful. It reminds me of the fact that Fight Club was also supposed to be “a warning.” The interesting question is why these are appealing to so many (myself included) and what that says about our current culture and society.

My theory is that its appeal is largely aesthetic, as in an all-encompassing aesthetic. “Regular life” in 2020 in a Western country is a fairly drab affair. All the new buildings have the same boring style, a monoculture pervades everything, and the notion of something being deliberately secret or hidden is antithetical to the social media generation. Deleuze (the philosopher) has a concept called deterritorialization which I think is relevant here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterritorialization

Ergo, a ruined mess of a city with bizarre, hidden subcultures and disturbing body modifications becomes appealing, even if the overall society portrayed is dystopian. The same appeal is there with something like Kowloon Walled City. At its core, cyberpunk (the genre) is a reaction against the homogeneity of modern technological society. That’s my take, at least.

Unfortunately, many people who claim CP2077 fails to tackle this or that thus is -phobic or -cist fail to understand what the word 'dystopia' means.

But I would also argue that CDPR marketing department overhyped this game as some kind of GTA like AKA power fantasy which it isn't.

Another framing of this comes from the producer driven development cycle. Whatever ideas and themes may be involved, developers were pushed hard and the results have gaps and flaws that break the flow. Some are even calling this release another No Man's Sky. The warning is that the video game space has become so competitive that large amounts of technical and artistic work has to be done and integrated and honed which may force the structure of the market to change.

Was there anyone that really saw Cyberpunk's world as aspirational?

RoboCop, Blade Runner, Total Recall and The Matrix weren't aspirational. They depicted dark futures based on amplifying the tendencies their authors saw in the world at the time.

What draw people into games like Cyberpunk is the aesthetic and the controlled freedom you can have. Contrasted with our mostly boring daily lives, it's easy to see why people find it appealing.

Harsh, but certainly something that I’m also try to tell my son, but oh well..

Cyberpunk is also a pretty good representation of anarcho-capitalism. Sure, there are government agents (mostly cops), but they're pretty insignificant. Megacorps run the world, backed by their private security forces. Everything that can be commoditized and sold is. It's really quite disgusting. I don't know why anyone would see it as an aspiration.