By: Christine Choi<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When trying to make sense of the oppressive systems and structures in place, video games may not be the first to come to mind when it comes to examining the system in place. Yet, the video game Papers, Please<\/em>, provides an interesting insight and commentary on what it means to put in a position of performing that status quo. The concepts in Grant Bollmer\u2019s book Materialist Media Theory<\/em> provided foundational groundwork with relevant ideas in this game. As a result, it brought attention to the following: what kind of context do video games provide for us when it comes to understanding the representation of bodies as well as the inscription of such bodies? As much as Papers, Please<\/em> exaggerates and parodizes the border control and immigration systems, it simultaneously reveals the biases of the immigration system as well as the player themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Papers, Please<\/em>, is an indie game where you play as an immigration inspector for the fictional country \u201cArstotzka.\u201d Throughout the game, you make decisions to let them cross the border based on people\u2019s \u201cvalidity\u201d of their documentation, which determines whether they are permitted to enter the country. The laws that determine what counts as a valid document continue to grow more and more convoluted as the game progresses, which makes detecting discrepancies even more difficult. Depending on if their documentations are all correct, their passports get stamped with \u201capproved\u201d or \u201cdenied\u201d accordingly. The premise itself already highlights how we, as bodies living under the legal institutions that define us, have forced us into the inscription of legal documents that indicate our right to exist as well as our subscription to performing such practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the immigration inspector, you are already assigned to the act of inscribing into each entrant\u2019s document via stamping in their passports. However, each body and the inscriptions that represent said body (i.e. the passports, entry permits, etc.) have much more than what is inscribed (or is not inscribed) in their documents. For whatever reason each entrant was unable to provide the correct details in their documents, they each had their own lives that brought them to the border\u2014details which cannot be inscribed within their very legal documents. It makes Bollmer\u2019s argument about analyzing the \u201cmargins,\u201d a space in which we can find \u201ctraces of a history that this barbarism worked to exclude from existence,\u201d all the more relevant in contextualizing their presence at the border (54). You, the player, can make the decision on whether you do perform<\/em> that very duty that this authoritarian institution has tasked you with through the institutional practices of inscribing. Doing so, however, means that you have made the inherent decision to push these people into the \u201cmargins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The game\u2019s mechanic of finding \u201cdiscrepancies\u201d in the information in the documentation also happens to be one of the ways that illustrates how \u201clegible bodies\u201d\u2014bodies that are \u201cproduced by legal, medical, and psychological practices of writing and documentation\u201d\u2014are rendered illegible by the immigration system (Bollmer, 67). The game appears to task the player with a relatively simple task: to carry out, or rather, \u201cperform,\u201d the laws that govern our bodies. As a result, the bodies perform the act of being a legal entrant to Arstotzka by carrying and presenting with valid documentation\u2014or at least attempt to. Failing to find the discrepancy results in citations for violating protocol\u2014get three of these, and it will be deducted from your salary. Even with the presence of the repressive state apparatus\u2014the agreement to obey the laws due to the \u201cthreat of police violence, or in this case, the government representatives\u2014the game incites as well as punishes the player for acting against them (Bollmer, 27). Throughout the gameplay, there will be several characters that ask you to approve the entry of those who do not carry valid documents and deny the entry of those who do, citing reasons such as wanting to stay with their family or the fear for their safety if certain individuals are let in. This is how the game presents the player with the agency of whether they want to perform within the legal and governmental practices or perform outside of them, even if that results in a protocol violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But why analyze the legibility of bodies and the inscription of documentation through a video game? When trying to understand the systemic challenges that arise from the documentation of our very being, one helpful framework to understand it is through the perspective of \u201cgame-sensing.\u201d \u201cGame-sensing\u201d refers to how gamers \u201cattune to a game system\u201d which often takes form in navigating through the game\u2019s mechanics and environments (Guillermo 156-157). Kawika Guillermo, in their book Of Floating Isles<\/em>, described how video games are able to show the ways in which we game-sense the racialized systems that we co-exist in (157). The game-sensing of Papers, Please<\/em>, as stated by Guillermo, \u201cattunes us to the violences of nationalist othering by revealing the overlapping practices of border security with state-enforced racism\u201d (162). Despite the seemingly immateriality of the bodies in digital video games, Papers, Please<\/em> exemplified how studying these media objects through the media theoretical lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The notion that video games, as media that are viewed as inherently self-serving and pleasure-seeking, are unable to delve deeper into the real-world oppression that are inscribed within society, has been frequently countered with the recent emergence of indie games such as Papers, Please.<\/em> It shows us how games can in fact materialize the immateriality of systemic marginalization of immigrants. In the game, the laws behind who gets to enter Arstotzka quickly change following a terrorist attack at the border. We see this parallel real-life events, such as the formation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)<\/a> as a response to the terrorist attack that occurred on September 11th, 2001 throughout the United States (\u201cTSA History\u201d). Games such as these can illuminate on how the TSA operates has been racialized by using the actions of extremist groups as reason to further marginalize racial groups. By contextualizing these games to the media theories that we continue to study, we can do more than just game-sense the systemic racialized injustices: we can challenge the existing hegemony in place and maybe eventually, see it lead to political change (Bollmer, 32). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bollmer, Grant. Materialist Media Theory An Introduction Grant Bollmer<\/em>. Zed Books, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Guillermo, Kawika. Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games<\/em>. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Papers, Please<\/em>. Directed by Lucas Pope, 3909, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTSA History | Transportation Security Administration.\u201d Transportation Security Administration<\/em>, www.tsa.gov\/history. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Christine Choi When trying to make sense of the oppressive systems and structures in place, video games may not be the first to come to mind when it comes to examining the system in place. Yet, the video game Papers, Please, provides an interesting insight and commentary on what it means to put in … Continue reading What Papers, Please tells us about governed bodies and inscription<\/span> Inscription Using Documents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Performativity in Papers, Please<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Game-sensing Systemic Marginalization of Bodies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n