Osmos and The Free Market

December 26th, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pso6UBicLWU

Keeping with the capitalism analogies, Osmos is also an interesting metaphor for the free market. Watch the clip above from 6:30 and see if you can spot the connection.

Osmos is largely a visual model of the corporate world where each bubble represents a company and each company shrinks, expands and/or merges with other businesses because of the market place’s demand for constant growth (ie. any company can improve their share at any time, so companies have no choice but to be fiercely competitive to stay afloat). Marxist critique of capitalism says that such a market will continue through such a process until there is only one governing super power, a merge of the largest influencing powers. Osmos is all about reaching that goal. The game ends when the condition to become the largest (ie. market place demands) are met or your bubble is so large that the other bubbles/businesses pose a threat.