Critical Review: Anda's Game. -Marie Shimada
“Anda’s Game,” by Cory Doctorow, is a short story about a twelve year old British girl, Anda, who enjoys playing online multi-player games. Although the exact name of the game she plays is never announced, it is evident that this game is nothing dissimilar to World of Warcraft. At the beginning of the story, Anda uses a male avatar because her parents told her that if she played a female she would be an “instant perv-magnet.” Anda meets another female player, however, who ultimately persuades Anda that she can accomplish more in the game if she takes on a female avatar. Once Anda begins using a female avatar, she is invited to join a special clan: Clan Fahrenheit. In Clan Fahrenheit, Anda meets another female player, Lucy, whom Anda goes on “missions” with, and basically, these two just kick lots of online ass. Because Anda in real life is sort of a chubby introvert, her new found confidence in her female avatar crosses over to give her confidence in real life. Anda begins to excel in her PE class, which is a big deal to her, but mostly to her father. Anda and Lucy become so good at their “missions,” that a mysterious donor begins to pay them to go out and kill other avatars. Anda and Lucy enjoy receiving anonymous paychecks, so they never really question who sends them. During one certain ass-kicking mission, Anda meets a new character, Raymond, who tries to stop Anda from killing other avatars. Raymond asks Anda if she knows who it is that she’s killing, which temporarily discomforts Anda, but Lucy forces Raymond out of the scenario. Raymond continues to pop up in their missions, but each time Lucy kills him. Finally, Raymond is able to explain to Anda that the characters they have been killing are actually child slaves in Mexico who are building up avatars to later be sold to rich buyers. In the Introduction to this story, the author explains that this practice is known as gold-farming (similar to what we saw in the in-class movie “Second Skin”). Lucy, however, thinks Raymond is a nuisance, and she continues to kill him. One day, Anda tries to stop Lucy from killing Raymond, but Lucy gets mad and attacks Anda. Anda worries she will be kicked out of the game for fighting with a fellow clan member. One of the leaders of the Clan, however, tells Anda that what she did was right, and that this gold-farming issue is a real thing. Together, they devise a plan to start attacking the avatars of those who support and contribute to this gold-farming, game-wrecking industry.
There are many themes and ideas present in “Anda’s Game” that are relevant to our course. For starters, the use of a female avatar in this story contradicts the online sexism mentioned in class, and replaces it with a real-life confidence-enhancing tool, that simultaneously becomes an online vigilante. The fact that Anda’s online personality can travel over to her real-life personality proves how identity and gaming are interlinked.
There is also a theme of good versus evil going on in this story, between the Clan members and the factory (slave) workers/owners. This raises an extremely important question: in what ways are people abusing technologies? This could open up a class discussion on technology ethics, or discussing the responsibilities of the consumer (gamer) to take action against those who do abuse these technologies (games). It is also critical to understand how people can use technology for both good and bad agendas.
In the author’s introduction to the short story, Doctorow states, “The easiest way to write about futuristic science fiction is to predict the present day” (57). Here, Doctorow uses this approach to help spread the word about gold-farming and how harmful it is, but also acts as an almost psychic predictor of these gold-farming booms. Doctorow explains how this story acts as another story about the “age-old fight for rights of oppressed minorities”- similar to the controversies surrounding GM’s labor workers from Mexico.
Works Cited:
Doctorow, Cory. Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present. New York: Thunder's Month Press, 2005. 57-100.