Organizing in the Game Industry: The Story of Game Workers Unite U.K.

Woodcock, Jamie

doi:10.1177/1095796019893315

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…In other words, crises are productive of subjectivities that celebrate hard work, competition, and elimination if need be. Third, Berlant highlights impasse, whereas game developers are organizing against the impasse they face at work and demand spaces of renewal and autonomy (Woodcock 2019). Finally, Berlant illustrates an "attrition of fantasy" whereas the game industry thrives on fantasies of meritocracy boosted by the mobile game and app ecosystem (Mejia and Bulut 2019).…”

Section: What To Do With Love and Its Cruelties At Work?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Fantasy of Do What You Love and Ludic Authoritarianism in the Videogame Industry

Bulut

2023

Television & New Media

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Like other creative workers, videogame developers believe doing what you love (DWYL) brings success and happiness. Drawing on three years of ethnography in a U.S. based studio, I theorize DWYL as a social fantasy, which glues developers to work despite cruelties. Because developers’ attachment to work is not an individual matter of the heart but a powerful relation that is mutually cultivated, desired, and even joyfully dictated, I conceptualize these cruelties through “ludic authoritarianism”, redefined as a diffuse form of workplace regime. In this regime, both the management and developers invest in the DWYL fantasy that normalizes overwork, creates success mythologies, institutes vague performance metrics, and cultivates discriminatory production cultures. Moving beyond “love at work brings exploitation” narratives, I show how authoritarianism is not a deviant political form in non-Western contexts but a diffuse and playful culture across elite workplaces in the Global North.

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Section: What To Do With Love and Its Cruelties At Work?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 4. That said, radical forms of praxis and imagination show the limits of ludic authoritarianism in this industry (Anthropy 2012; Pedercini 2012; Ruberg 2015; Ruffino 2022; Woodcock 2020). …”

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confidence: 99%

The Fantasy of Do What You Love and Ludic Authoritarianism in the Videogame Industry

Bulut

2023

Television & New Media

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“…This entails acknowledging that games are not simply means to "more noble" ends: even if games can support the development of other literacies, from language skills to programming abilities, game literacy should not be confined to a second-tier role within the constellation of different literacies. Videogames are important part of contemporary culture, with their ties and mutual influence becoming more and more evident, with the aforementioned rise of alt-right (Bezio, 2018) or the erosion and fight for workers' right (Woodcock, 2020) in the digital age being firstly rehearsed in gaming circuits. Adopting a cynical stance that sees games and gaming as "minor" and/or separate from contemporary life only legitimizes the hegemonical exclusionary practices that maintain games as "boy's toys" (Harvey, 2019) in the public imaginary.…”

Section: Final Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decolonizing Game Literacy

Paula¹

2021

Global Citizenship for Adult Education

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In the last decades, digital games moved from niche to mainstream: more and more people play, talk about and engage with these artefacts, becoming an important part of contemporary cultures, giving rise to the idea of game literacy, the set of skills needed to meaningfully engage with videogames. While the potentials of game literacy have, to some extent, been already discussed in the literature, we have not discussed enough the need for a game literacy that problematises the sociocultural dimensions of gaming, including the hegemonic, exclusionary rationales implicitly disseminated through mainstream gaming. In this chapter, I outline a decolonial model for game literacy, remarking how the reflection about the gaming circuits of production and dissemination should be part of any initiative that aims at dealing with critical and creative competences towards gaming, and how these are crucial for any citizen in contemporary societies.

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“…Finally, with their focus on the resisting capacities of game developers, Games of Empire foresaw the organizing capacities of the multitude reflected in the global movement “Game Workers Unite” (Weststar & Legault, 2019; Woodcock, 2020). Although one might critique Games of Empire ’s overemphasis on flows of desire, its stress on struggle and labor autonomy is valuable, given the promising transnational struggle of Game Workers Unite.…”

Section: White Masculinity Ideology and Technological Practice In Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

White Masculinity, Creative Desires, and Production Ideology in Video Game Development

Bulut

2020

Games and Culture

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Game workers have a problem. They code values and ideologies into games, but they are either not aware of it or deny it. Through a constructive and critical engagement with Games of Empire, I propose the concept of “ludic religiosity” to reveal how white masculinity informs game workers’ professional discourses, technological practices, ludic desires, and imaginations. Drawing on three-year-long ethnographic research and in conversation with cultural studies, philosophy of technology, and postcolonial game studies, I revisit desiring machine and ideology, two major concepts from Games of Empire. My goal is to demonstrate the racialized and gendered discourses and practices behind game developers’ desire to produce cognitive capitalism’s “escapist” commodities and rethink ideology within white masculine production cultures. Foregrounding how racialized and gendered practices and imaginations inform the desire behind the global game industry is crucial, especially in the aftermath of Gamergate and the rise of authoritarianism.

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Organizing in the Game Industry: The Story of Game Workers Unite U.K.

Cited by 8 publications

References 2 publications

The Fantasy of Do What You Love and Ludic Authoritarianism in the Videogame Industry

The Fantasy of Do What You Love and Ludic Authoritarianism in the Videogame Industry

Decolonizing Game Literacy

White Masculinity, Creative Desires, and Production Ideology in Video Game Development

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