Pikmin as a Metaphor for the Cruel, Capitalist Regime

Let’s wind the clock back 20 years to the original Pikmin game. It’s 2001. The Nintendo Gamecube has just arrived on the scene. Parents purchase the game with the adorable little plant people to place under Christmas trees for their little ones. “This looks fun!” they think.

And they would, the capitalist swine.

In the original Pikmin game, Captain Olimar of the S.S. Dolphin is a captain with the Hocotate Freight shipping company. He’s on vacation when he crash lands on a mysterious planet, and meets the kindly creatures he calls Pikmin: tiny, humanoid plant creatures who attempt to help Olimar recover parts of his ship from the dangerous environment and see him home.

Or, in other words, a technologically advanced colonizer bumbles his way into a civilization he knows nothing about, takes charge of the local populace, and sends them to labor and die by the hundreds in order to meet his needs.

DIE! DIE, FOR THE RULING CLASS!

I remember the game as it came out, and honestly, very little of that reading I just gave you was subtext. Pikmin are smart enough to remember the location of their nests and your ship, they know instinctively what materials are sustenance for them vs. advanced technology for Olimar. And if you’re unsuccessful in fixing your ship, the Pikmin know enough to bring you to their nest and save your life by making you a hybrid species with their own genetic code. Now, go, Pikmin! Throw yourselves into the maw of deadly Bulbins! Your new God, Olimar, commands it!

Honestly, the only saving grace of that first game’s narrative is that the tensions were high for Olimar. He had thirty days (which are each timed missions within the game) to fix his ship or, he hypothesizes, DIE OF ATMOSPHERIC POISONING. Those time limits, high stakes, and the responsibility of looking after 100 working Pikmin at a time who are helping you out of the goodness of whatever the Pikmin equivalent of hearts are made the game too stressful for a young Calvin Sharpe to play any more than the first couple levels. I didn’t need that kind of stress, then, even without the knowledge that the game was a colonial nightmare.

Then comes Pikmin 2, where you willingly return to the planet and force Pikmin into servitude to SAVE YOUR SHIPPING COMPANY BY STEALING THE TREASURES OF THE PLANET YOU INVADED. What a happy, fun time, plundering a planet that saved your life at the expense of countless natives, Olimar! And all this because Louie, the new planetary conqueror, ate an entire shipment of freight he was supposed to deliver, lied about it, and jeopardized Olimar’s company. It’s hard to imagine a better analogue to Europeans colonizing and brutalizing the rest of the world to “save the day” than stupid, stupid Louie failing upwards into unimaginable riches. Also, I didn’t finish this one either. The monsters were too scary.

And then Pikmin 3, a separate planet begins stealing the natural resources of the Pikmin home world because blah, blah, blah, food shortage, blah, blah, blah, die for our exotic fruits, Pikmin scum.

Twenty years later, the games remain a delightful puzzle/strategy challenges full of cute designs and charm. But that’s what makes them such staggeringly effective propaganda. It’s a little unsettling to me now that when I play Pikmin 3 Deluxe on the Switch, I don’t feel the stress of losing Pikmin any more. Sure I could take my time and care for my labor force… but reserves are plentiful, and time is fruit.

Capitalism. It can happen to you, too.