Abstract
A Precarious Game does not rehash trite and simplistic depictions of the video game industry, such as reaffirming the severity of “crunch mode.” Rather, Ergin Bulut uses his meticulous participant observation of Desire—a game company located in a small town in the Midwest called GameCity—to reveal Indra’s net of game production and add to our understanding of precarious labor and multifaceted inequality in so-called creative industries.
In the first three chapters, Bulut challenges the playful/joyful image of the game industry by showing how an unequal regime operates underneath the public perception. Chapter 1 shows that although the game industry is often associated with creativity and joy, as the neologism “playbor” pithily suggests, it exists through various forms of inequality at the global and local level. These inequalities include the widespread use of low-wage precarious work in the Global South and in the United States as well as “the questionable representations of race and gender” (p. 45) in many video games. Such disparities are invisible to the most dominant group in the industry: white, male workers. In Chapter 2, Bulut shows that the labor process of game production is strongly intertwined with the broader concept of financialization. When Desire was an independent, though financially unstable, studio, developers could exercise autonomy in almost every stage of production. After Desire was acquired by the publicly traded game publisher Digital Creative, however, antagonism arose between managers and developers. Management desired a better financial portfolio and increased their control on intellectual property rights, making workers more alienated from their products. In Chapter 3, Bulut narrates how the partnership among different actors in GameCity—urban planners and realtors, for example—transformed the image and culture of the entire city into “a creative micro-urban space.” Such a cultural change influences “who can work, live, and dine in certain sections of the city and who are excluded from such practices of citizenship” (p. 88).
Throughout Chapters 4 to 7, Bulut penetrates the issues of labor and employment relations within the game industry. Chapter 4 shows how Desire manages its employees’ productivity through implementing flexible and playful work environment policies and training workers with a set of communicative skills. However, these systems also serve to confirm the managers’ control over the workplace. In Chapter 5, Bulut revisits the reproductive labor carried out by game workers’ spouses, a topic briefly discussed also in the first chapter. He points out that our current understanding of game developers’ overwork fails to recognize the significant contribution and exploitation of domestic labor. Such exploitation will remain unnoticed so long as the industry’s techno-masculine culture prevails and reproductive labor is regarded as marginal. However, he also witnesses that “partners of game developers are critically aware of and react to conditions of self-exploitation” (p. 118) as opposed to just living with it (p. 119). In Chapter 6, Bulut approaches the video game industry through the lens of a game tester, a perceived entry-level job. Although game testing is an essential part of quality assessment, game testers are not considered a core group for various reasons, such as low skill requirements. Therefore, testers constantly suffer from employment insecurity, making their job no longer enjoyable.
Perhaps surprisingly, core developers also suffer from such precarious working conditions, as Bulut describes in Chapter 7. The fate of Desire’s employees is now hinged upon the financial situation of its parent company; even a successful project does not guarantee job security. When Digital Creative failed to establish a long-term plan for both stakeholders and shareholders, went bankrupt, and sold Desire to the new owner, Desire employees suffered under threat of unemployment and job uncertainty despite producing quality work. Many core developers left, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to look for another job in the industry after Desire was acquired by another owner. It shows how fragile the labor market of the video game industry is.
Though this book is a riveting account of how precariousness permeates the game industry, there are a few comments I nonetheless wish to make. First, techno-masculine culture requires deliberate practices for its sustenance, just as a more egalitarian culture requires active participation to be maintained. Although game workers might share a similar culture, they are not a homogenous block. Some may dissent the techno-masculine culture they work within. For example, James, a laid-off employee of Desire, did not conform to prevalent cultural schema despite his position as a white, male person (p. 148). I am thus curious if there are any processes that condition workers or informal practices to suppress rebellions and protect the cultural norm of the video game industry. Second, Bulut’s discussion on labor unions is less systematic than his other points. His descriptions of the Desire employees as indifferent to unionization despite Game Workers Unite (GWU)’s recent organizing drive seem unrealistic. I wonder if some peculiarity makes Desire lag behind this overall trend of unionization. Bulut suggests giving workers a universal basic income (UBI) as an alternative to unionizing would encourage game workers to take the “exit” option, which is interesting; however, the impact of UBI is not limited to these employees—it also affects those who do invisible labor, such as their partners. The author’s argument would have been more compelling if he had discussed how a UBI would affect the whole labor network that exists beyond the workplace.
The points I make above are by no means meant to detract from the rich analysis offered by A Precarious Game. Bulut transports readers inside of video game production to gain a better perspective on the gestalt of the video game industry. This book is a thought-provoking example of media ethnography and would captivate anyone interested in a critical approach to employment relations in any industry where technology and creativity intersect.