Play to Submission: Gaming Capitalism in a Tech Firm

di Tongu Wu (Autore)

Temple University Press,U.S., 2024

Games are often a fun perk of a tech company job, and employees can “play to win” in the competition to succeed. But in studying “Behemoth” (a pseudonym for a top American tech company), Tongyu Wu discovered that gaming work culture was far more insidious. Play to Submission shows how Behemoth’s games undermined and manipulated workers. They lost their work-life balance and the constant competition made labor organizing difficult. Nonetheless, many workers embraced management’s games as a chance to show off their “gamer” identities and create a workplace culture with privileged insiders and exiled outsiders, with female and migrant workers usually in the latter group. Moreover, Wu indicates this may be the future of work for high- and low-skilled and, creative workers in an environment where capitalists have heightened demands for technology and creativity. Drawing from 13 months of ethnographic work, Wu presents a persistent reality in which the company reaps the reward of surplus productivity, leaving employees themselves in a highly competitive and sometimes precarious work position.

• Autore: Tongu Wu
• Editore: Temple University Press,U.S.
• Anno: 2024
• Rilegatura: Paperback / softback
• Pagine: 238 p.
• Dimensioni: 229 x 152 mm
• Peso: 399 gr.
• EAN: 9781439922989

Testo in English