Where does one even start with Jason Rohrer’s The Castle Doctrine? The naming convention it shares with castle doctrine Laws, a rather racist and horrifying series of laws like “Stand Your Ground” in their implementations? The delusional fantasies of the stereotypical nuclear family’s patriarch that has run wild across America without consequence? The innate human fantasy to be a hero, to stand tall over a villain - that we have seen over and over again in media enough times that some of us perceive it as reality?

Or do we cut down to brass tack - that The Castle Doctrine is goddamn creepy. The way Jason Rohrer talks about and promotes Castle Doctrine is goddamn creepy. It’s already illegal to booby trap your home, so it’s supposed commenting on the reality its set in is already bunk. The 90’s fantasy of clean cut white as hell Mad-Dad-Man protecting his precious wife, physical belongings, and children from the dangerous wasteland of “Thugs” and “Punks,” who were typically not white.

Of course, with the tagline of “Protect What’s Yours,” and a headline of a rather white looking pixelated man looking over his dog, child, wife, and other child - in that order - is a rather disturbing illustration of what Rohrer deems to be possessions in his life. Rohrer has fully, and entirely, embraced this manufactured illusion of the Heroic Father protecting his family from the dangerous world around him. For all our joking about Mad (White!) Dads in Videogames, Rohrer embraces the stereotype without a hint of irony.

However, only half of The Castle Doctrine is to “protect what’s yours,” through an elaborate series of booby traps. The other half is to invade the homes of other players and try to get at their “possessions” - the wife, the vault, the kids - ultimately to get at the money. To build more elaborate traps to protect your “possessions,” people who lack life and agency, and your money.

Rohrer claims this is, somehow, a critique on society. A look at American Suburbia’s culture of violence. A “social experiment.” A “personal work.” Somehow, making these lifeless, agency lacking characters the stereotypical white nuclear family image he has been indoctrinated into by a larger societal culture is “personal.” To Jason, he has made a work of high art, a complicated and intricate canvas illuminating some sort of important perspective on society.

Jason has made a farce, the ramblings of a delusional wackjob unable to see outside himself, lacking a hint of irony. The name alone, “Castle Doctrine,” and Jason’s unironic use of it without a hint of the reality castle doctrine laws like Stand Your Ground and Make My Day hold over the lives of the members of non-white, non-nuclear families all over the nation. Jason has achieved full preformative intellectualism, professing a supposedly informed perspective through art which doesn’t stand up to even the weakest critique.

Renisha McBride was an innocent nineteen year old woman who was shot and killed after the simple act of knocking on the door of a home not too different from Jason Rorher’s. Her crime was seeking help after a car accident at 2AM in a white neighborhood.

The shooter, a white male, has faced no charges. His identity concealed by authorities “for his protection.”

Joe Horn was a white man who in 2007 shot and killed two Afro-Latino men running from his neighbor’s home after robbing it of cash and jewelry. Even though the police told Horn not to get involved and to stay in his home, he decided to indulge on the Heroic Man Who Does What Needs To Be Done fantasy and take arms against these Evil Thugs - shooting both of them in the back, while a plain clothes officer watched.

Joe Horn was cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury.

Marissa Alexander was a black mother who in 2007 fired warning shots inside her home to try and scare off her abusive husband, whom she had a protective order against.

For defending her home and her children from violent abuse, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison after 15 minutes of deliberation.

Castle Doctrine is not a fucking game, Jason.

It is a liberty, you as a white male in this society, are afforded - to murder people of color in the street without repercussion.

It has nothing to do with booby-trapping your home and money - which is, again, illegal. For very good reasons.

It is a power fantasy men like Jason have bought into hook, line, and sinker. To choose who lives and who dies. To stand heroically over evil foes. Much profit is to be made off of the paranoid delusions of men like Rohrer. From economic capital for private corporations selling the latest and greatest in “home defense” solutions, (a billion dollar industry) to political capital for conservative politicans preying on the manufactured fears of white Americans seeking leaders who are “tough on crime.”

Jason Rohrer isn’t “one of the most interesting game designers alive,” Frank Lantz - he is nothing more than a sucker.

In 1947, in the aftermath of World War 2, the United States government put out a propaganda film. Titled “Don’t Be A Sucker,” it’s a wonderful little piece of cinema. It should be mandatory viewing in public education, it should, in my opinion, be required viewing in order to participate in these larger political discussions Rohrer wishes to have a say in. You can watch it in full on Youtube.

For those who don’t have 17 minutes to spare, it is about how a political party of white conservatives taking power over a diverse nation of people by giving fellow white men power and unity over minorities. Admittedly, in America whiteness has learned to cloak itself better in recent years, as white men have always ruled in America. However, I feel as if Don’t Be A Sucker breaks it down in such a manner that anyone can appreciate.

In the 1991, the same year in which Jason’s Castle Doctrine takes place, white men felt as if they were losing their grasp over America. A term ran like wildfire through the media - “political correctness,” a battle standard for loudmouthed white men like Rush Limbaugh to wrap themselves in as a victim, as an oppressed crusader fighting for ideological freedom from liberal weenies, bra-burning feminazis, and uppity people of color.

In reality it was a tool for bigots to play the hero whilst spewing hateful vitriol and disrupting political discourse away from addressing inequalities in a supposed land of the free. It was a power fantasy of heroics, of strong, proud white men wrapped in the flag of freedom standing tall over everyone else.

Looking at the landscape of political discourse over the past couple of decades since then, it largely succeeded in maintaining the status quo.

What Jason Rorher’s The Castle Doctrine would hope to achieve is nothing more than maintaining that same status quo. To further illustrate how massively out of touch he is with the reality of the world he inhabits, he has announced a pre-release contest titled “Steal Real Money.”

The top 8 players of The Castle Doctrine will receive a portion of a $3000 bounty, a 20” x 20” painting they’ve managed to steal, and one of a number of other prizes, the First Prize winner receiving a fucking dog club, an expandable baton which he ever so intimately describes on his website as:

“Own the club that started it all!”

Yes, the best player of The Castle Doctrine receives not only a cash bounty but a literal fucking weapon in the mail. It’s at this point where the violence Rorher is attempting to comment on is a sick fantasy for him - he revels in it, like a pig in shit.

The 2nd to 5th prizes include a “Door Devil,” and the text accompanying it makes me wonder about Rorher’s opinions on chemtrails, reptilian body snatchers, and the New World Order - no, not the overrated heel stable of the late World Championship Wrestling.

“Worried that the feds aren’t going to give you enough warning when they barge in? If you’re worried about that, you’re probably the kind of person the feds are actually watching! In any case, it’s amazing what a few strips of metal and some long screws can do.”

The Feds! They’re watching you! You can ward them off with metal and screws! Surely this is the last line of defense you need for your underground Bitcoin mining operation! Of course, for the final few winners, you get a $50 gift card to a hole in the wall gun store, which is such a fantastic value to everyone who doesn’t live anywhere near New Mexico, I mean come on. Having thought of this, Jason writes:

“There are many beautiful sights in New Mexico, so you will likely visit there some day. Keep your gift certificate [to a hole in the wall gun store] in a safe place until that day comes.”

I swear, you can’t make this shit up. Better yet, the grand finale to this shitshow of a post is the zooming in on a dead, pixelated man being devoured by a bulldog, clutching a $3000 bill.

This shit would be so hilarious in it’s stupidly if it wasn’t so respected by academic critics like Frank Lantz, another white dude. Is this what games as a community are becoming? An arms race to who is the most out of touch and delusional white dude, unable to engage with the reality of the world outside of terms of engagement centered around their supremacy?

Ken Levine and his murderboner magnum opus Infinite, John Carmack’s unironic endorsement of libertarian ideology, David Jaffe’s crusade against political correctness in defense of the industry’s rampant sexual harassment problem, and now Jason Rorher’s murderboner simulator making him, in Frank Lantz, Director of the New York University Game Center’s eyes, “one of the most interesting game designers alive.”

This onslaught of headlines is really begging the question none of us really want to ask, but I think it’s worth putting out there. How the hell are games ever going to move forward, and be widely accepted as an artistic medium whilst they struggle under this out-of-touch, borderline sociopathic, and quite frankly delusional white male stranglehold?