Truck simulator, trucker-simulators, and the containment of neoliberal capitalism

Abstract

This paper discusses truckers who play games (including Truck Simulator) while on the road. Inspired by the concept of “container technologies” and more recent work which distinguishes between containers and containment I ask how these trucker-simulators and their assemblage of concentric machines variously hold, filter, and leak the logics of neoliberal capitalism. To do so, I explore the work and play of the trucker-simulator through three relations of containment that increase in scale from one to the next. I begin with American Truck Simulator (ATS) itself, a game that I argue is designed to be a container of neoliberal, capitalist ideology. Next, I move from the game to the truck cab, which I frame as a physical site of containment for both the trucker-simulator and their gaming battlestation. Finally, I discuss the wider trucking industry as one arm of the organizational network known as logistics. This represents a return to containment-as-ideology, but instead of examining how a game like ATS is informed by culture, I show that is also an artifact that informs culture. I conclude with a discussion of capitalist realism and the ideal of convenience to ask whether we can conceive of other relations to work and play.