Except that we do...pretty explicitly actually. If you observe the world you're traversing and collect and listone to audio diaress, rather than just going from objective point A to objective point B, you will learn A LOT about Bioshock's world and its characters. Andrew Ryan alone is the best written villian in a videogame IMO. There are dozens of audio diaries explaining and describing his character and his background. He has a huge amount of character development .This is why Bioshock utterly destoryed Infinite on the presentation front.

I went through all Ryan's audio diaries (got the achievement for it), and when you take out the ones where he is not complaining about Fontaine ... there is not much left. We don't get much about Ryan prior to the fall of Rapture. Most of what we learn about him comes after he abandoned his principles in favor of mind control and the violent gang war that Rapture devolved into. It really just gives the impression that the guy is both an idiot (smart guy yes, but an idiot with this whole utopia building thing) and a violent psychopath.

Best villain ever in a videogame? He was memorable I'll give you that, but not a great villain by any means. Come to think of it, I am struggling to think of a single great and well developed villain in a videogame. There are tons of memorable villains (your Bowser., Dr. Robotnik, Dr. Wiley, etc.) but none that really stand out as well rounded characters. Just a bunch of Bond villains  populate videogames it seems. There probably are good villains, but I am just struggling to think of them...

Andrew Ryan is faaar from a zealot and he actually is tragic, as he tried to protect his city from Fontaine/Atlas and got his Utopia ruined  in the process

Ryan was a smart man, but he was in way over his head in his endeavor to create an Objectivist utopia of sorts. It would seem (based on the characters in the game and the ones we learn about through their audio diaries) that this supposed Objectivist utopia was filled with people who were anything but scholars of Ayn Rand. It is like Ryan just rounded up people at a bus station and said "Hey let's make an underwater city based very loosely on rational self interest."

A gangster like Fontaine would never have been allowed in to begin with ... and even if he had the people of Rapture should have been wise to his game rather than join up with him. In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt brings the best and brightest to his city ... not religious nutcases and mobsters which Rapture was filled to the brim with.

Why do characters have to be sympathetic and relateble in order to be good? Do you also think Joker from Dark Knight Rises is a bad character because we cant relate to him. And its ok for characters to be unlikeable as long as we're meant to not like them. In Bioshock, you're not supposed to feel related to anyone, but rather enjoy the characters for who they actually are.

I am fine with characters that are not relatable. The problem was, as I stated before, that we are getting a rather one-sided view of each of these idealogies in the games, and it would have been nice if the creators had presented more balanced view of each subject. My bias in favor of Objectivism aside, I think that all of the ideas (even the ones I disagree with) deserved to be explored more in depth. They didn't have to do this ... it was their game, but I am arguing that it makes the game pretentious rather than contemplative and thought provoking. It is easy to sling mud at something ... it is hard to provide a balanced perspective. Tragic villains would have accomplished this rather than the sociopaths Levine and his team invented.

There are lots of cases like this in original Bioshock as well. Look for Peach Wilkins audio diares at the end of 3rd level in original Bioshock. Theres also an audio diary of a stripper (or a dancer?) who also explaines how she got tricked into going to rapture, as well as some families who lost their daughters due to Little Sister programm

Peach Wilkins is a sad case as he pretty much got caught in the crossfire between Fontaine and Ryan (although most of his friends seemed to side with Fontaine). Is hard to be as sympathetic for him I guess considering he becomes a paranoid nut case at the end and tries to kill Jack

I would agree with you here, Bioshock 2 and Infinite defintely needed more polishing in that department, but original Bioshock was excellent in that regard

This is absurd ... the only person in Rapture who even comes close to articulating an Objectivist worldview was Ryan ... and even that is pushing it. I get the feeling that Levine may have read parts of Ayn Rand's works years ago, and he very loosely together Bioshock based on Atlas Shrugged ... and maybe the villain from Russia with Love (didn't he want to make underwater cities too?). The closest we got to anything resembling Objectivism was Ryan's 30 second commercial in the bathosphere as you first get to Rapture. Rapture itself seemed to be filled with people that didn't know the first thing about it (evidenced by the religiousness, paganism, fiat currency, and, above all else, their willingness to experiment with powerful untested drugs that did in fact make them insane ... not exactly a city of rational self interest was it?

How did you come to this conclusion? Serious question, not mocking you.