Memes

I like factorio but the game never even asks the question of whether destroying an entire planets ecosystem just so you, one person, can get home is ethical or right.

yeah, but the game isn't about social commentary, it's about logistics, factory building, and to some degree, tower defense. You don't like biters? You can just disable them, you don't actually need to play with them. You can just roleplay as if you're living on mars.

I feel like if anything factorio does a great job of explaining why the human urge to industrialize exists, and makes you experience all of the negatives of it. If we're taking it like a social commentary sort of thing. Ultimately it's nothing worse than human history has done at any given point of time. By a large margin.

By the way, you might want to check out nullius, it's the inverse of the gameplay loop. The planet is barren, and you are analogous to god, you need to create everything in order for the "normal" gameplay loop to begin.

It's also kind of interesting to consider the impacts of the biters themselves, they aren't really a life form, they're more akin to a bacteria, just on a macro, insect scale. They literally only do something productive for themselves once you get in their way. Their entire evolutionary lifeform is predicated on you being a negative influence on their environment. They consume your pollution, and use it to grow and become stronger. However, left to their own devices they seem to spread across the entire planet, almost like a cancer, just without the consumption of life that is typical, because biters seem to be magic?

that's my two cents on it, i suppose.