Hacking is well-known in gaming, indicative of a predilection for hacker culture but often without the culture itself. By contrast, hacktivism -- the intersection of hacking and social activism -- has gone relatively unexplored in gaming.

Hacking as gameplay

The Deus Exgames, most notably Mankind: Divided, focused on technology as a way to subvert power structures and ultimately overthrow the corrupt establishment. Though the gameplay focuses on infiltration, technology is how Jensen pulls apart the Illuminati, byte by byte.

Shadowrunused hacking (or in the Shadowrun vernacular, decking) and technomancy (decking through use of magic) as a tool for stealing from and embarrassing the handful of MegaCorps that run the game’s world. Some deckers, namely the environmental hacktivists from the fictional Salish-Shidhe region (formerly British Columbia), see technomancy as a necessity to ensure the future survival of their land. When a MegaCorp comes sniffing around, eager to exploit the bounties of the Salish-Shidhe, they aren’t afraid to drive them back with everything they have, including technomancy.

Even Inside, with its sinister, faceless regime converting humans into pliable meat-puppets, uses the power of technology to challenge (and ultimately overthrow) the authorities. Technology as a tool for social change isn’t new. Hacking, and therefore hacktivism, is still a daunting socio-technological concept that requires quite a bit of nuance to explore effectively.

It wasn’t until Ubisoft introduced us to the Watch Dogs franchise in 2014 that audiences got a real taste for what hacktivism was (and wasn’t). The original Watch Dogs captured an aspect of hacking as a narrative tool, but didn’t demonstrate any understanding of hacker culture. Watch Dogswas a lacklustre revenge story with a dour, unlikeable protagonist and fell woefully short of what hacktivism really is.

Marcus, Watch Dogs 2’s protagonist, is proving a point: no corporation is above accountabilityCredit: ubisoft

The sequel, Watch Dogs 2, manages to tread the line between the gravitas of hacktivism and the loud iconoclastic roots of hacker culture. Watch Dogs 2is an irreverent, effervescent nod to modern hacktivism, both with its storytelling and its gameplay. Unlike most games that incorporate hacking as a mechanic, Watch Dogs 2peels back the complexity and invites lateral thinking to solve puzzles. Much like how modern hacktivists use a variety of tools to achieve their political ends, Watch Dogs 2encourages playfulness and creativity when tearing down the powers that be.

Hacktivists are everywhere

The modern internet was built by hacktivists, fueled by idealists and optimists who wanted information to be freeand data to be protected from government interference. They are internet standards pioneers, champions of net neutrality, and innovators of every sort. They are pirates, artists, activists, script kiddies and hackers. They are the disenfranchised, the original online social justice warriors, long before it became a pejorative term.

Hacktivists are everyone from anywhere, and no one at all.

Watch Dogs 2’s hacker troupe, DedSec, is a combination of the witty irreverence of LulzSec and the dedicated activism of Anonymous. Their major players use a wide array of tools in order to take down Blume, the architect of ctOS -- a central operating system used in major cities to monitor and control the city’s infrastructure, as well as its citizens. Your in-game contact and hacker friend Sitara uses art and distinctive branding to bring the DedSec community together, similar to how Anonymous reaches out to hacktivists and regular people through their own flavour of recruitment videos.

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DedSec is much less ominous than AnonCredit: ubisoft

DedSec prefers the amicable “join us” to Anonymous’ “expect us,” indicative of its real-world inspiration from the now defunct LulzSec. LulzSec was a splintered cell of Anonymous that took embarrassing the establishment -- from private corporations, like Sony, to the US government-- to the next level for no reason other than, well, lulz. As much as the spin would have the public believing that LulzSec and Anonymous are (or have been) cyberterrorists -- seeking to cause permanent harm to individuals or groups of individuals -- hacktivism stops short of that as a matter of principle.

Hacktivism didn’t start with Anonymous. The term was coined in 1994 by the Cult of the Dead Cow long before social media, the 24-hour news cycle and the smartphone. Their manifesto, the Hacktivism Manifesto, was meant as a call to action for hackers with a social conscience. It called for hackers to band together and fight to keep data free. This Manifesto gave birth to a new era of online social activism through hacker culture: hacktivism as we know it today.

Anonymous has been willing to get its collective hands dirty in order to achieve their political ends. Members often put their personal freedom on the line, especially if their identities are revealed, so that others may have a voice. Anonymous is responsible for keeping the internet going during the Arab Spring in 2011, bringing to light the myriad of issues taking place across the Middle East.

While DedSec’s motivations are far closer to home, tied to American cities and American citizens, their dedication to hacktivism’s core purpose -- embarrassing power players by exposing whatever skeletons are in their corporate (or government) closets -- is undeniable. Marcus, the protagonist in the game, creates legally questionable mischief wherever he goes, throwing power structures into upheaval more often than not. Nothing like airing a corporate executive’s dirty laundry over the internet, live and uncensored, for the world to see. Or stealing an iconic vehicle from an upcoming film just to screw with film execs for not getting hacker culture right.

This is what happens when you’re a scumbag exec -- DedSec takes you downCredit: ubisoft

Several missions gave a firm nod to Anonymous and LulzSec operations, including the parallel between the Church of New Dawn and the Church of Scientology. Anonymous notoriously harassed the Church of Scientology in 2008 (dubbed Project Chanology) by clogging up phone lines as a “virtual sit-in,” overloading their faxes with garbled messages (known as black faxes), and a distributed denial of service (DDoS). Watch Dogs 2 requires much more hands-on time with their version of the church -- the final mission in the arc is a heck of a challenge if you aren’t sneaky and subversive the whole way through -- but there are obvious parallels in DedSec’s motivations, right down to the celebrity element.

Effective hacktivism isn’t limited to code

Watch Dogs 2reinforces that hacking isn’t just about code, nor is it about the method of delivery; it’s about the motivation behind it. Hackers existed long before the advent of the internet, or even personal computing. Hacking was (and is) about innovative mischief. And DedSec uses every bit of innovative mischief to make their political points. Deface property? Only if it embarrasses Blume. Steal a car? Only if it deters dirtbag movie execs from making terrible movies about hacker culture. Socially engineer your way into a company, just to sabotage it from the inside? Only if it makes people sit up and listen to your warnings about Big Data.

The global political climate has become rather chilly over the last five years. The unrest, the violence, the upheaval -- we are collectively walking down an unlit path in Central Park at two o’clock in the morning and it is mighty dangerous out there. While the activists are on the ground, doing the big work in meatspace, hacktivists are behind the scenes, quietly subverting the establishment. And when governments seek to destroy intellectualism, hacktivists siphon research and protect it for the future.

“You cannot arrest an idea.” - Jake ‘Topiary’ Davis

Hacktivism in games is a nascent narrative. Watch Dogs 2has done a marvellous job of capturing the bombastic qualities of hacker culture without relying on the clandestine, shadowy hacker trope. Games have a number of opportunities to take hacktivism in new and interesting directions. Crafting stories that explore the power of community in fighting injustice, rather than focusing on a single “hero” character, for example, would be a great way to demonstrate one of hacktivism’s major tenets. While hacking is an important part of hacktivism, it’s not all about code. Consider social engineering, which we’ve seen integrated into a number of espionage-centric games (such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell), as the basis of a hacktivism narrative. Leave the code to the black-hats, while a protagonist infiltrates and subverts power structures in a social capacity. Clandestine, Logic Artists’ cooperative action-strategy game where players play a hacker and a spy, started to touch on this, but was far more James Bondin heels than Anonymous.

Watch Dogs 2gave us a peek at what neon-powered, socially conscious (albeit slightly shallow) hacktivism could look like under a certain lens with certain lighting. Its real power, and beauty, is in driving home the same message that the Cult of the Dead Cow has been espousing since 2001: we see you, we hear you, and we won’t stop subverting your influence, even if you threaten our freedoms. We’re stronger together.

Amanda Farough has been writing about video and tabletop games for a number of years. Her tastes are eclectic and varied, with a love for strategy and action. You can find her on Twitter at@amandafarough, where she is likely shipping her Overwatch main, D. Va, and Lucio. You can also find her previous work at her personal site.

TopicsGaming