History Main / OneNationUnderCopyright

* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'': With the possible exception of [[VideoGame/ArmoredCore2 the second game]] and its successor, ''[[VideoGame/ArmoredCore2AnotherAge Another Age]]'', the world is dominated not by one, but multiple corporate states.

* ''VideoGame/AceCombat3Electrosphere'' features the start of this in motion, with country-sized corporations General Resources Ltd. and Neucom engaging in a global case of CorporateWarfare.

* With the possible exception of ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore2'' and its successor, Another Age, the world is dominated not by one, but multiple corporate states.
* ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvolt:'' The Sumeragi Group is often said to be the ''de facto'' government of the country the game is set in, as it controls not only economy but also entertainment, logistics and security, particularly regarding [[PsychicChildren Adepts]].
* ''VideoGame/BioShock'': This is what Rapture ended up becoming. Turns out the man who built it, a staunch anarcho-capitalist who claimed to love personal liberty and free enterprise and thought of the poor and less fortunate as "parasites", was actually very quick to toss his ideals aside when someone started to out-compete ''his'' business; his solution, of course, was to [[SecretPolice forcibly]] seize all the businesses that got too profitable for their own good. Thanks Andrew Ryan, [[{{Hypocrite}} you cheap bastard]].
* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' has the Hyperion corporation taking over Pandora, in the aftermath of the Atlas corporation's collapse. The [[Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel Pre-Sequel]] mentions in a presentation that the founders of Hyperion managed to destroy the central government of humanity, which led to the other corporations to rise and become galactic empires in their own right.

* ''The Republic'' expansion for ''VideoGame/CrusaderKingsII'' allows you to play as a merchant republic, which are modelled on the real life Hanseatic League and other merchant states such as Venice.

* On the [[OlderThanTheNES old]] BBC Micro there was a space-trader game called ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}''. This featured some planets that were corporate states.
** ''Frontier'', the sequel, also has these. They vary from reasonably civilized places to pirate-infested systems which are happy to trade slaves and battlefield weapons to anyone visiting.
* The Caldari State, one of four playable races in ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', is a conglomeration of Mega Corporations. They outright call themselves a corporate state, and the company rivalries are so deep-seated the only thing that really bands them together is the fight to reclaim their homeland.
** Since the death of [[OnlySaneMan Otro Gariushi]] and the recapture of Caldari Prime, the glue holding the State together has increasingly become [[PuttingOnTheReich Tibus Heth and his underlings]].
* The eponymous city in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' is run by (seemingly immortal) pre-nuclear apocalypse business executive & HowardHughesHomage Mr. House, who describes himself as the territory's "president, CEO, and sole proprietor." House's primary goal is to bring the entire region under his control as an autocratic [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism state capitalist]] society, but as concerning as that might sound to some he's actually ALighterShadeOfGrey compared to the alternatives.

* In the universe of ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'', ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'', and ''VideoGame/DreamfallChapters'', the world of Stark is run by the Syndicate, a conglomeration of [[MegaCorp megacorporations]], complete with its own military/police force called the EYE.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'' the whole planet of Noveria is a conglomerate of corporations. The planet is exempt from all but the [[TheFederation The Citadel's]] most anti-catastrophic laws. Corruption is rampant and generally ignored as long as it doesn't impede regular business. Also arguably the Volus species which are like the Ferengi but with morals. A variant in the Turians, who are instead of a nation corporation are a nation military, to the point the advancement in military rank is an advancement as a citizen as well (though non-military jobs are not lesser or looked down upon).
** Interestingly, the volus find the idea of parents "owning" their children to be absurd, which is why they associate by clan rather than family.

* ''VideoGame/NoUmbrellasAllowed''

* In much the same vein, Morgan Industries in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' is supposed to be more or less one of these, but [[GameplayAndStorySegregation you can't directly make that choice in Social Engineering]].
** The reason for that is likely that if you could, Morgan Industries could be a [[FridgeLogic non-corporate state]]. As it stands, the available choices [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation can be seen]] as representing different ''variations'' of One Nation Under Copyright (Police State: ''Politburo of Directors'', Democracy: ''One Man, One Share (of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_stock common stock]])'', Fundamentalist: ''God, Incorporated'', Green: ''A green economy is a sustainable economy'', Power: ''Power is the shortest path to wealth'', Knowledge: ''Innovation drives capitalism'').
** ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'', the SpiritualSuccessor to ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', features an {{Expy}} of Morgan Industries called the American Reclamation Corporation.
** ''VideoGame/PandoraFirstContact'', the other SpiritualSuccessor, has the Noxium Corporation, which has a monopoly on [[AsteroidMiners asteroid mining]] in the Solar System and brings that attitude to Pandora.
* ''VideoGame/SimCity'' gives the player this option with [=OmegaCo=] in Cities of Tomorrow. The goal is to create and sell as much [[{{Unobtanium}} omega]] as possible to various factories and commercial businesses, and eventually have residents buy robots and subscribe for the omega deliveries. However, it just doesn't stop there, as you also get to buyout [[StarScraper Megatowers]] and entire cities in hopes to improve the bottom line. This means that a player can literally take over a whole chunk of the region under [=OmegaCo=].
** Even the less futuristic specializations (such as drilling for oil and running casinos) work around with idea that the corporations are a part of city government, meaning the player isn't just a mayor of the city, but also [=CEO=] of their very own corporations.

* The little-mentioned Kel-Morian Combine in ''Franchise/StarCraft'' is controlled by a bunch of mining guilds. The Combine worlds were annexed by the Confederacy (except for Moria itself, who joined up with the Dominion upon its formation) some years before the first game, but broke away from the Dominion following the Brood War. Rory Swann, the ''Hyperion'''s engineer, is from a former Combine world; he lost his arm in a rebellion against them.
** The novel ''Heaven's Devils'' takes place during the war between the Combine and the Confederacy from the viewpoints of Jim Raynor and Tychus Findlay. Both sides are shown to be just as corrupt, and the war shows the first uses of "resocialized" criminals as SpaceMarines.

* The [[EvilInc Czerka Corporation]] from ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', while functioning like a normal mega-corporation in Republic Space, actually has complete control over at least two known planets, Tatooine and Kashyyyk, in the first game.
** One of the loading screens says they and other mega-corps police themselves, being too large for the Republic to control. Czerka seems to still be in the Republic's good graces in the second one despite openly dealing arms to both sides.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': Reliable Excavation and Demolitions controls one half of the world. Builders League United controls the other half. The woman officiating the [[ForeverWar neverending war between the two companies]] ''[[NGOSuperpower is the CEO]] of [[OneWorldOrder both of them.]]''
** Or at least, that was the original premise. They've abandoned this in favor of RED and BLU being effectively worthless ventures founded by a pair of dimwitted, feuding brothers using their wealthy father's land and money. The comic "Blood Brothers" cemented the companies/brothers' status as money sinks. However, this same update also introduced the co-op map Coaltown, which bears the markings of a company town (see Real Life below). A sign above a store states that it accepts "coal tokens only."
** The Administrator still controls the world through TF Industries, RED, BLU, and Mann Co., but RED and BLU's role has been moved away from. It may have something to do with Zepheniah Mann's will, but the will itself does not specify how the Administrator runs RED and BLU.
** The Mann Vs. Machine update (and subsequent update) finally gives us a clear picture of why The Administrator would ever want to rule the world by turning the world's worst two companies (and dumbest [=CEOs=]) into secret rulers of the planet: Australium either enhances the user's intelligence to supernatural levels, or when refined can provide immortality instead (as seen in Redmond, Blutarch, The Administrator, and Grayson). Zepheniah Mann's inheritance of companies included a [[SoundEffectBleep f***-ton]] of Australium (or at least, the means to store the largest quantities of it safely and securely). DO THE MATH. Also, Grayson is more egotistic but also much smarter than his two idiot brothers (but still an idiot) so he cuts out the middlemen and makes Mann Co. itself the NGO Superpower.

* ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series:

* In ''VideoGame/GroundControl'', any world that is not Earth is, technically, under corporate control. This also applies to the worlds run by the Order of the New Dawn, since they are officially registered as a MegaCorp (for political reasons). The Crayven Corporation is one of the biggest ones out there and owns many colonies in both the Inner and Outer Spheres. By the time of the sequel, all the old {{Mega Corp}}s are gone, but the Intergalactic Trade Guild is stated to be a corporate alliance of several Outer Sphere worlds who remain neutral during the war between the [[TheEmpire Terran Empire]] and the [[TheAlliance Northern Star Alliance]].

* ''VideoGame/StarControl II'''s Druuge of the Persei system take this trope to a ridiculous extent: The Crimson Corporation is not only a government substitute, but owns all the natural resources and inhabitants as well. Druuge who quit (or are fired from) the corporation are instantly found guilty of stealing "company property" (air) and are sentenced to death. Druuge who are no longer useful, cannot work, or are in debt are tossed into the reactors of the nearest power station to be used as fuel. Retirees can breathe at a reduced rate. Oh, and their religion basically amounts to a ''contract'' with their god, where they promise worship and conversion in exchange for a relatively static and good way of life and "at least one miracle".

* ''VideoGame/CivilizationCallToPower'' has a futuristic form of government called "Corporate Republic". In-game history noted that the gradual collapse of modern governments forced corporations to step in and maintain vital infrastructure and services or risk major losses.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} V'' expansion ''Brave New World'' added Venice as a playable civilisation. They are unique in being unable to build or capture settlers and so can't expand normally, but are able to buy city states instead.

* On the [[OlderThanTheNES old]] BBC Micro there was a space-trader game called ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}''. This featured some planets that were corporate states.
** ''Frontier'', the sequel, also has these. They vary from reasonably civilized places to pirate-infested systems which are happy to trade slaves and battlefield weapons to anyone visiting.
* The Shinra company from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. Ostensibly, there is a mayor to the city of Midgar, but his offices are in the company building, and he does not have any real power. His only real job is managing all of Shinra's archived files.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}'', the [[BigBad WEC]] arose from the merger of the economic bodies that themselves took over the running of the various continents from more conventional governments when they toppled or became too weak. interestingly, the [=WEC=] actually claims to ''not'' be a government, merely a steward for the powers of government, even as it goes about cheerfully tightening its grip on the ways, the means, the sources, and the consumers of production.

* The Caldari State, one of four playable races in ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', is a conglomeration of Mega Corporations. They outright call themselves a corporate state, and the company rivalries are so deep-seated the only thing that really bands them together is the fight to reclaim their homeland.
** Since the death of [[OnlySaneMan Otro Gariushi]] and the recapture of Caldari Prime, the glue holding the State together has increasingly become [[PuttingOnTheReich Tibus Heth and his underlings]].
* With the possible exception of ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore2'' and its successor, Another Age, the world is dominated not by one, but multiple corporate states.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'' the whole planet of Noveria is a conglomerate of corporations. The planet is exempt from all but the [[TheFederation The Citadel's]] most anti-catastrophic laws. Corruption is rampant and generally ignored as long as it doesn't impede regular business. Also arguably the Volus species which are like the Ferengi but with morals. A variant in the Turians, who are instead of a nation corporation are a nation military, to the point the advancement in military rank is an advancement as a citizen as well (though non-military jobs are not lesser or looked down upon).
** Interestingly, the volus find the idea of parents "owning" their children to be absurd, which is why they associate by clan rather than family.
* ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series:
** The Teladi are a race of [[LizardFolk anthropomorphic lizard-people]] with [[ProudMerchantRace an almost religious devotion toward profit]]. Their government is called the "Teladi Space Company" and their ruler's official position is [=CEO=]. Their current [=CEO=] is Isemados Sibasomos Nopileos IV, or just "Nopileos" and "Nopy" for short, who inherited it the Space Company from her grandmother, Isemados.
** In the backstory to ''VideoGame/XRebirth'' the Plutarch Mining Corporation's office in the Albion System staged a [[TheCoup coup d'etat]] after the [[PortalNetwork jumpgate network]] shut down, ousting the now-isolated Argon Federation government and military and setting themselves up as the government.

* The Vector corporation in the ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' series fits this trope to a T. Almost to the degree of being ridiculous, given certain revelations in the third game [[spoiler: such as the fact that Vector's CEO is the head of a religious organization hell-bent on Vector's destruction too]].

* The little-mentioned Kel-Morian Combine in ''Franchise/StarCraft'' is controlled by a bunch of mining guilds. The Combine worlds were annexed by the Confederacy (except for Moria itself, who joined up with the Dominion upon its formation) some years before the first game, but broke away from the Dominion following the Brood War. Rory Swann, the ''Hyperion'''s engineer, is from a former Combine world; he lost his arm in a rebellion against them.
** The novel ''Heaven's Devils'' takes place during the war between the Combine and the Confederacy from the viewpoints of Jim Raynor and Tychus Findlay. Both sides are shown to be just as corrupt, and the war shows the first uses of "resocialized" criminals as SpaceMarines.
* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' has the Hyperion corporation taking over Pandora, in the aftermath of the Atlas corporation's collapse. The [[Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel Pre-Sequel]] mentions in a presentation that the founders of Hyperion managed to destroy the central government of humanity, which led to the other corporations to rise and become galactic empires in their own right.
* The eponymous city in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' is run by (seemingly immortal) pre-nuclear apocalypse business executive & HowardHughesHomage Mr. House, who describes himself as the territory's "president, CEO, and sole proprietor." House's primary goal is to bring the entire region under his control as an autocratic [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism state capitalist]] society, but as concerning as that might sound to some he's actually ALighterShadeOfGrey compared to the alternatives.
* [=GiganTech=] in ''VideoGame/ArmedPoliceBatrider'' effectively has [[WretchedHive Zenovia Island]] as its own city-state. And testing ground [[ArmsDealer for black market weapons]]. [[FromBadToWorse And power supply]] [[HumanResources for the really energy-hungry weapons]].
* ''VideoGame/SimCity'' gives the player this option with [=OmegaCo=] in Cities of Tomorrow. The goal is to create and sell as much [[{{Unobtanium}} omega]] as possible to various factories and commercial businesses, and eventually have residents buy robots and subscribe for the omega deliveries. However, it just doesn't stop there, as you also get to buyout [[StarScraper Megatowers]] and entire cities in hopes to improve the bottom line. This means that a player can literally take over a whole chunk of the region under [=OmegaCo=].
** Even the less futuristic specializations (such as drilling for oil and running casinos) work around with idea that the corporations are a part of city government, meaning the player isn't just a mayor of the city, but also [=CEO=] of their very own corporations.
* In ''VideoGame/TachyonTheFringe'', the [=GalSpan=] sector of space is wholly owned by the [[MegaCorp Galactic Spanning Corporation]]. The other corporations are not shown to be as expansive, although they may or may not own some colonies in other sectors. While the Bora are typically portrayed as LaResistance to [=GalSpan=]'s encroachment, their official name is the Bora Mining Guilds, implying a corporate state.
* In ''VideoGame/GroundControl'', any world that is not Earth is, technically, under corporate control. This also applies to the worlds run by the Order of the New Dawn, since they are officially registered as a MegaCorp (for political reasons). The Crayven Corporation is one of the biggest ones out there and owns many colonies in both the Inner and Outer Spheres. By the time of the sequel, all the old {{Mega Corp}}s are gone, but the Intergalactic Trade Guild is stated to be a corporate alliance of several Outer Sphere worlds who remain neutral during the war between the [[TheEmpire Terran Empire]] and the [[TheAlliance Northern Star Alliance]].
* ''VideoGame/BioShock'': This is what Rapture ended up becoming. Turns out the man who built it, a staunch anarcho-capitalist who claimed to love personal liberty and free enterprise and thought of the poor and less fortunate as "parasites", was actually very quick to toss his ideals aside when someone started to out-compete ''his'' business; his solution, of course, was to [[SecretPolice forcibly]] seize all the businesses that got too profitable for their own good. Thanks Andrew Ryan, [[{{Hypocrite}} you cheap bastard]].
* ''VideoGame/MirrorsEdgeCatalyst'': The nation of Cascadia is ruled by an executive board of business owners known as the Conglomerate, made up of thirteen ruling families. Those thirteen businesses run absolutely everything. The populace is placated by the promise that if they work really hard, they can be promoted to better positions, or even (in extraordinary cases) get adopted into one of the families. While this does happen, it's only to an extremely lucky few, and common citizens have essentially no personal freedoms, privacy, or rights.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', a possible government Civic for oligarchies is "Corporate Dominion", with the description stating that your empire is a MegaCorp that has supplanted the traditional state. A DLC added actual Corporate star empires, which have their own set of civics.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'', the Alterra Corporation that you work for is an interstellar "trans-gov", a transport corporation that bought out the functions of government a long time ago, and treats its citizens as employees, compensated and promoted by merit but ultimately owing everything they use back to the corporation... including, apparently, all the natural resources on 4546B that you harvest for your own survival, which you will be billed for upon your return to civilization (PDA: "Your current total stands at 3,000,000 credits")[[note]]If you survive, you become the first employee ever to rack up a debt of ''one trillion''[[/note]]. Several PDA's also indicate that even personal relationships are treated as business contracts, with affection and time spent together being treated as commodities to be negotiated and traded.
* ''The Republic'' expansion for ''VideoGame/CrusaderKingsII'' allows you to play as a merchant republic, which are modelled on the real life Hanseatic League and other merchant states such as Venice.

* In the universe of ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'', ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'', and ''VideoGame/DreamfallChapters'', the world of Stark is run by the Syndicate, a conglomeration of [[MegaCorp megacorporations]], complete with its own military/police force called the EYE.
* ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'': In the Halcyon system, the setting’s [[MegaCorp Mega-Corps]] have effectively become governments, to the point that discrimination is based on things like which corporation you were born into. WordOfGod describes it as a world where the robber barons of the late 19th/early 20th century never died out and now ''every'' town is a CompanyTown.
* ''Videogame/AzureStrikerGunvolt:'' The Sumeragi Group is often said to be the ''de facto'' government of the country the game is set in, as it controls not only economy but also entertainment, logistics and security, particularly regarding [[PsychicChildren Adepts]].

* ''VideoGame/JustCause4'': Solís is ''technically'' a free-market economy, but the only companies that are not tied up in enough red tape and arbitrary taxation to make operating in the country unfeasible ''just happen'' to be the ones owned and operated by the dictator Oscar Espinosa, who also happens to have dissolved the Armed Forces and Police and replaced them with a PMC called the Black Hand... that he also owns.