The Potential for Survival Games as a Research Medium in Political Science

Investigating the Hobbesian and Lockean State of Nature in Rust

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15203/4231.vol54.2025

Abstract

Political science has long suffered from the limited ability to conduct experiments and observations in a controlled environment due to its subject matter – groups of people and societies. In this article, the authors explore the potential of survival games as a research tool and setting in political science, weighing their advantages and disadvantages. In the following parts of the article, they conduct an observation of violent and non-violent behaviour of players in the game Rust. This was done to not only prove the utility of games as research medium, but also to obtain new data and insight into the state of nature, a fundamental question of political science posed by Hobbes and Locke. The results show that in a totally anarchic environment of the game, which in certain aspects encourages violence by lowering the stakes, players nonetheless favour non-violent behaviour and defensive violence, rather than offensive violence.

Author Biographies

  • Jan Byczkowski, non-affiliated, Marmara University alumnus

    PhD in Political History and International Relations of the Middle East from Marmara University, Turkey. His dissertation titled “Decentralisation in the Middle East: Towards a Regional Model” considered historical and contemporary reasoning for political decentralisation in the region and constituted an attempt at creating a flexible, modular model of Middle Eastern decentralisation. Interested in all things Middle East, especially minority rights, inter- and intra-state conflicts, and religious and political ideas. Moreover, pursuing research on political decentralisation, anarchism, and natural rights in the global context as well. Nowadays also focusing strongly on the virtual experimentation with the “state of nature”, as well as examining the political implications of future expansion of humanity into space.

  • Ömer Furkan Alp, Medipol University

    PhD candidate at Istanbul Medipol University, in the Department of Media and Communication Studies. His research focuses on new media, particularly video games. Currently working as a research assistant in the New Media and Communication Department at Istanbul Medipol University.

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Published

2025-12-18

Issue

Vol. 54 No. 2 (2025): Open Issue

Section

Research Article

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Jan Byczkowski, Ömer Furkan Alp

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