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Marx at the Arcade: Consoles, Controllers, and Class Struggle
More people are playing video games than ever before, and yet much of the work of their production remains obscured to us.
Deploying a Marxist approach, Jamie Woodcock delves into the hidden abode of the gaming industry, unravelling the vast networks of artists, software developers, and factory and logistics workers whose material and immaterial labor flows into the products we consume on a gargantuan scale. Beyond this, the book analyzes the increasingly important role the gaming industry plays in contemporary capitalism, and the broader transformations of work and economy that it embodies. Woodcock also presents game-play itself not as a “deviant activity,” as it is often understood, but as a commentary of estrangement from contemporary forms of work. In so doing, it offers a fresh and much needed analysis of a sector which has for too long been neglected by scholars and labor activists alike.
Deploying a Marxist approach, Jamie Woodcock delves into the hidden abode of the gaming industry, unravelling the vast networks of artists, software developers, and factory and logistics workers whose material and immaterial labor flows into the products we consume on a gargantuan scale. Beyond this, the book analyzes the increasingly important role the gaming industry plays in contemporary capitalism, and the broader transformations of work and economy that it embodies. Woodcock also presents game-play itself not as a “deviant activity,” as it is often understood, but as a commentary of estrangement from contemporary forms of work. In so doing, it offers a fresh and much needed analysis of a sector which has for too long been neglected by scholars and labor activists alike.
208 pages, Paperback
First published June 18, 2019
52 people are currently reading
850 people want to read
About the author
Jamie Woodcock
14 books20 followersDr Jamie Woodcock is a researcher based in London and a senior lecturer at King's College London. He is the author of books including Troublemaking (Verso, 2023), Employment (Routledge, 2023), The Fight Against Platform Capitalism (University of Westminster Press, 2021), The Gig Economy (Polity, 2019), Marx at the Arcade (Haymarket, 2019), and Working the Phones (Pluto, 2017).
His research is available to read online and has been featured widely in the media. It is inspired by workers' inquiry and focuses on labour, work, the gig economy, platforms, resistance, organising, and videogames. He is on the editorial board of Notes from Below and Historical Materialism.
Jamie completed his PhD in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London and has held positions at Goldsmiths, University of Leeds, University of Manchester, Queen Mary, NYU London, Cass Business School, the LSE, the University of Oxford, and the Open University.
His research is available to read online and has been featured widely in the media. It is inspired by workers' inquiry and focuses on labour, work, the gig economy, platforms, resistance, organising, and videogames. He is on the editorial board of Notes from Below and Historical Materialism.
Jamie completed his PhD in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London and has held positions at Goldsmiths, University of Leeds, University of Manchester, Queen Mary, NYU London, Cass Business School, the LSE, the University of Oxford, and the Open University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
March 30, 2019
Gaming the Coders
Marx and Engels had nothing to say about videogames. Jamie Woodcock tries to connect them in Marx at the Arcade. The links are tenuous, but Woodcock’s knowledge of the industry is intense.
The first videogame launched in 1940, and ever since, bored engineers have been tinkering with computers to make them playable. Today, at the other extreme, videogames are universally available. Woodcock quotes Forbes magazine as finding 69% of Pokémon Go players playing it at work. New games can be on the screens of 200 million people. In the UK, 51% of entertainment spending is on videogames, almost three times what is spent on music. It is a new institution in global culture.
The book divides into three: the history, the industry and the games. Of the three, the industry section is by far the most interesting.
The gaming industry is living irony. In the early days of videogaming, hackers ruled. Game developers came from a “Refusal to work. They were all about leisure, hedonism, irresponsibility against clock-punching, discipline and productivity,” Woodcock says. It was all about sharing, recognition, and joy at creation.
Today, capitalism rules. No one works in gaming without signing an NDA – a nondisclosure agreement – before the job interview can take place. News from the workforce is therefore sparse. But what we do know it is a total throwback to sweatshops and no rights. There are now thousands of companies developing games, and they all seem to have the same playbook. They hire developers at apparently decent salaries, but then make them work 90 hour weeks with no extra pay, effectively cutting their pay to less than half. There is zero loyalty or job security. When the “crunch” period is done and the game has launched, the developers are simply fired. They come back when a new game is under development.
Thanks to Gamergate, we also know the industry is filled with racism and sexism. Women are disdained, and paid 15% less. Everyone works in a microscopic area, so that no one can take pride or credit in the game, and may not even know what the final product will look like. It’s an assembly line where the model of car is none of your business. You just perform your little task, endlessly. Layers of management put the pieces together but have no creative say. Job satisfaction is nil. Motivation is nil. Frustration is total.
During crunch, developers must work from 9am to 10:30pm, with just enough time to sleep some. And this is seven days a week. When they clock out, their work is handed off to another bureau in a different time zone, so the job can continue, with no one taking ownership of anything. The result is exhaustion, little follow through and lots of errors.
These are conditions labor fought tooth and nail to break up 120 years ago, and enlightened high tech has simply reimposed them, for the greater profit of silicon billionaires.
About the only delight in the book is that the workers are waking up and organizing. While the major unions ignore them, niche unions are teaching them the ropes, showing them they are not alone, that they have the power to stop this madness, and that they need to be actively promoting change for their own self preservation and the good of everyone. All this is total news to millennials.
That history has to repeat itself so soon is discouraging. That solutions at least, are also repeating is reassuring. The race to the bottom may finally be ending. The real game in gaming is labor. Marx would understand.
David Wineberg
Marx and Engels had nothing to say about videogames. Jamie Woodcock tries to connect them in Marx at the Arcade. The links are tenuous, but Woodcock’s knowledge of the industry is intense.
The first videogame launched in 1940, and ever since, bored engineers have been tinkering with computers to make them playable. Today, at the other extreme, videogames are universally available. Woodcock quotes Forbes magazine as finding 69% of Pokémon Go players playing it at work. New games can be on the screens of 200 million people. In the UK, 51% of entertainment spending is on videogames, almost three times what is spent on music. It is a new institution in global culture.
The book divides into three: the history, the industry and the games. Of the three, the industry section is by far the most interesting.
The gaming industry is living irony. In the early days of videogaming, hackers ruled. Game developers came from a “Refusal to work. They were all about leisure, hedonism, irresponsibility against clock-punching, discipline and productivity,” Woodcock says. It was all about sharing, recognition, and joy at creation.
Today, capitalism rules. No one works in gaming without signing an NDA – a nondisclosure agreement – before the job interview can take place. News from the workforce is therefore sparse. But what we do know it is a total throwback to sweatshops and no rights. There are now thousands of companies developing games, and they all seem to have the same playbook. They hire developers at apparently decent salaries, but then make them work 90 hour weeks with no extra pay, effectively cutting their pay to less than half. There is zero loyalty or job security. When the “crunch” period is done and the game has launched, the developers are simply fired. They come back when a new game is under development.
Thanks to Gamergate, we also know the industry is filled with racism and sexism. Women are disdained, and paid 15% less. Everyone works in a microscopic area, so that no one can take pride or credit in the game, and may not even know what the final product will look like. It’s an assembly line where the model of car is none of your business. You just perform your little task, endlessly. Layers of management put the pieces together but have no creative say. Job satisfaction is nil. Motivation is nil. Frustration is total.
During crunch, developers must work from 9am to 10:30pm, with just enough time to sleep some. And this is seven days a week. When they clock out, their work is handed off to another bureau in a different time zone, so the job can continue, with no one taking ownership of anything. The result is exhaustion, little follow through and lots of errors.
These are conditions labor fought tooth and nail to break up 120 years ago, and enlightened high tech has simply reimposed them, for the greater profit of silicon billionaires.
About the only delight in the book is that the workers are waking up and organizing. While the major unions ignore them, niche unions are teaching them the ropes, showing them they are not alone, that they have the power to stop this madness, and that they need to be actively promoting change for their own self preservation and the good of everyone. All this is total news to millennials.
That history has to repeat itself so soon is discouraging. That solutions at least, are also repeating is reassuring. The race to the bottom may finally be ending. The real game in gaming is labor. Marx would understand.
David Wineberg
February 10, 2021
"Marxists should be interested in videogames because their production, circulation, and consumption can provide important insights into the inner workings of contemporary capitalism."
Two things inspired me to read this book, and in turn, to look finally at video games, the object of so much of my free time, in a more academic light: first, a lengthy and fantastic Kotaku review of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption II (https://kotaku.com/red-dead-redemptio...) that both lauded the company's grand accomplishments in prosaic fashion and criticized it for the toxic crunch culture that led to said accomplishments; second, the "Gaming Debate" between Matt Christman and Virgil Texas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY33d...), hosted by the gaming podcast No Cartridge, in which the participants took a fun but no less thoughtful approach to the question of whether gaming was "good or bad" from the point of view of Marxism and socialism. In my search for more media that treated gaming as a serious industry and cultural force, I came across this gem by Jamie Woodcock that analyzed the history, creation, and play of video games through a Marxist lens.
This book is a delight. Don't be fooled by the title—Marx as a figure plays less into Woodcock's reporting on labor conditions in the video game industry and in his cultural analysis of various types of games than it may lead one to assume, and this is good, as, after all, Karl Marx lived and died long before anyone could concieve of the gaming world we live in today. Rather, you'll learn about the gaming industry's troubling ties to arms companies and the military-industrial complex; how the terrible concept of "crunch time" affects workers and their product, and how NDAs keep them from speaking out about it; various attempts by video game workers to organize their labor. You'll hear arguments for why and how gaming should be viewed and analyzed as part of the culture, and then dive into a deeper analysis of different styles and genres of games.
Woodcock, Editor of Notes from Below, is a thorough researcher and entertaining writer, and has books on labor in call centers and the gig economy which I'll certainly be adding to my list. Whether you are a socialist who games, or are just curious for a thoughtful or fresh analysis of your digital passtime, you'll find Marx at the Arcade an interesting little read.
Two things inspired me to read this book, and in turn, to look finally at video games, the object of so much of my free time, in a more academic light: first, a lengthy and fantastic Kotaku review of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption II (https://kotaku.com/red-dead-redemptio...) that both lauded the company's grand accomplishments in prosaic fashion and criticized it for the toxic crunch culture that led to said accomplishments; second, the "Gaming Debate" between Matt Christman and Virgil Texas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY33d...), hosted by the gaming podcast No Cartridge, in which the participants took a fun but no less thoughtful approach to the question of whether gaming was "good or bad" from the point of view of Marxism and socialism. In my search for more media that treated gaming as a serious industry and cultural force, I came across this gem by Jamie Woodcock that analyzed the history, creation, and play of video games through a Marxist lens.
This book is a delight. Don't be fooled by the title—Marx as a figure plays less into Woodcock's reporting on labor conditions in the video game industry and in his cultural analysis of various types of games than it may lead one to assume, and this is good, as, after all, Karl Marx lived and died long before anyone could concieve of the gaming world we live in today. Rather, you'll learn about the gaming industry's troubling ties to arms companies and the military-industrial complex; how the terrible concept of "crunch time" affects workers and their product, and how NDAs keep them from speaking out about it; various attempts by video game workers to organize their labor. You'll hear arguments for why and how gaming should be viewed and analyzed as part of the culture, and then dive into a deeper analysis of different styles and genres of games.
Woodcock, Editor of Notes from Below, is a thorough researcher and entertaining writer, and has books on labor in call centers and the gig economy which I'll certainly be adding to my list. Whether you are a socialist who games, or are just curious for a thoughtful or fresh analysis of your digital passtime, you'll find Marx at the Arcade an interesting little read.
June 9, 2020
The function of the videogames industry within capitalism is something that has greatly fascinated me for quite some time. This book only encapsulates that intrigue, highlighting the anti-work origins of videogame creation, the communal aspect of the platform itself, and the recently-founded unions for game developers, as well as its direct ties to the military-industrial complex and the domination of said platform by the alt-right wherein our (the Marxists, the leftists) call to action lies.
That said, there were some details of the industry that I was sure would be covered and weren't. Details that are glaringly obvious, such as the extreme expense of the platform--from consoles and games to monthly gaming subscriptions to dual monitors and f-king gamer chairs--and how that relates to who plays these games, who becomes the target audience that is then marketed to in an endless feedback loop where the only people important enough for gaming companies to take into account are those who can drop several hundred dollars on a new PlayStation every three years. This realization of mine was what made me consider videogaming's involvement in capitalism to begin with, so I was shocked that (in my memory, though I did comb through this book rather meticulously) it didn't get so much as a passing mention.
Even so, I still learned a lot and am very grateful to Jamie Woodcock's investigation into a platform that has not been utilized to its full extent. There is a movement growing within the videogame industry towards equity and workers' rights, as shown by the labor union Game Workers Unite, but there's still a long way to go in overhauling the industry towards something largely progressive. As we, Marxists/leftists/whatever label you do or do not relate to, neglect the power of videogames as a means of exploring ideals, communicating with one another in the context of new worlds, and taking storytelling to a new realm of immersion, we risk it belonging to doxers, misogynists, racists, the list goes on. I would absolutely recommend this book.
That said, there were some details of the industry that I was sure would be covered and weren't. Details that are glaringly obvious, such as the extreme expense of the platform--from consoles and games to monthly gaming subscriptions to dual monitors and f-king gamer chairs--and how that relates to who plays these games, who becomes the target audience that is then marketed to in an endless feedback loop where the only people important enough for gaming companies to take into account are those who can drop several hundred dollars on a new PlayStation every three years. This realization of mine was what made me consider videogaming's involvement in capitalism to begin with, so I was shocked that (in my memory, though I did comb through this book rather meticulously) it didn't get so much as a passing mention.
Even so, I still learned a lot and am very grateful to Jamie Woodcock's investigation into a platform that has not been utilized to its full extent. There is a movement growing within the videogame industry towards equity and workers' rights, as shown by the labor union Game Workers Unite, but there's still a long way to go in overhauling the industry towards something largely progressive. As we, Marxists/leftists/whatever label you do or do not relate to, neglect the power of videogames as a means of exploring ideals, communicating with one another in the context of new worlds, and taking storytelling to a new realm of immersion, we risk it belonging to doxers, misogynists, racists, the list goes on. I would absolutely recommend this book.
April 20, 2020
Un libro muy básico (en el sentido de introductorio y de tocar todos los temas) sobre marxismo y videojuegos. Cubre con exhaustividad su historia, la ética hacker, el concepto de 'playbour' de la comunidad modder y las relaciones de producción, amen del estado de los trabajadores de la industria. De hecho, es casi lo que más cubre. Especialmente interesante su acercamiento a cómo se trabaja hoy en día en videojuegos, cómo se deslocaliza la producción de determinadas áreas a países en vías de desarrollo y cómo la estructura del trabajo hacen que sea muy difícil sindicarse. Remata hablando de la importancia cultural del videojuego y de la transmisión de ideas, pero sin ir muy a fondo. Es un pelín denso y requiere conocer conceptos muy básicos del marxismo, pero es una lectura muy enriquecedora.
July 31, 2019
Ah this was a really disappointing one.
Marx at the Arcade promises a left-wing, Marxist analysis of video games. And there is. A little bit. I'm not bagging on the book for not being theory-heavy enough, it's just really badly executed.
Woodcock struggles to connect Marxism with video games, at least in my view. And most of this I personally blame on the range of topics he tries to discuss. Too much in a slim volume. For example:
One of the opening chapters summarizes the history of video games and play. I'm not entirely sure tying it to theories of playing is essential. I'll admit I haven't read much cultural theory, but watching a movie or listening to music also is an economically unproductive activity a la play, isn't it? No one asks questions of play about cinema do they? So already right off the book for me starts off on the wrong foot. It focuses on some theories said sometime in the past, and this is actually a continued theme in the book.
Then the chapter proceeds to talk about a history of video games. It's a rich history, I hadn't known before they'd been some version of computer games since the '40s. One the '60s and '70s hit it's a pretty run of the mill history of video games. Then we get to the '90s and it's really just a list of popular games and consoles and some trends like online gaming. And that's it. Ten pages of history and the last crucial decades crammed into a scant few.
Look I'm not a hardcore game by any means. I rarely ever play the latest AAA titles, because of cost and also they're never as satisfying as they used to be. But the past 10-20 years of video games have been absolutely transformative. The entire profit mechanisms have these industries have changed and become more exploitative and more ripping off the consumer at the door. Rockstar literally just launched an actual casino where you can gamble your actual money away. FIFA has been fucking people over for years, because of how confusing it is to not spend money on microtransactions. And microtransactions! THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE FIFA GAMES NOW MAKE MORE MONEY FROM MICROTRANSACTIONS THAN ACTUAL GAME SALES!
Glaring omissions like this are ripe throughout the book. It's clear Woodcock just stuck to what he knew or could pull from a Google search. He tried to make this book something less journalistic and more academic by tying it to Marxist theory, but I don't think he has enough passing familiarity to even know some of the basic actual scams out there by major game studios.
Another example: Steam. The only negative mention of it in the book is modding, they tried charging for modding a few years ago. Fine yeah completely heinous practice. Absolutely write about it. But Steam is a gatekeeping platform. If you're an indie studio you have to bargain with them over the price of the game and when it goes on sale. As it turns out, Steam does similar practices that Amazon and Walmart have been doing to obtain low prices. And what about loot boxes?
Honestly this book misses so much, and it's very apparent where Woodcock did his homework and original work and where he just aggregated a bunch of pretty staid takes on the video game industry.
It's not all bad. The one part I enjoyed where clearly Woodcock did some original work was the one about developers organizing into a union, something we almost never hear about.
But in all honesty. You wanna know what kind of scams major video game industry players are, give the book and pass and just watch Jim Stirling on YouTube rant about whatever fucked up thing they've done that day. It's more informative than anything in this book.
Marx at the Arcade promises a left-wing, Marxist analysis of video games. And there is. A little bit. I'm not bagging on the book for not being theory-heavy enough, it's just really badly executed.
Woodcock struggles to connect Marxism with video games, at least in my view. And most of this I personally blame on the range of topics he tries to discuss. Too much in a slim volume. For example:
One of the opening chapters summarizes the history of video games and play. I'm not entirely sure tying it to theories of playing is essential. I'll admit I haven't read much cultural theory, but watching a movie or listening to music also is an economically unproductive activity a la play, isn't it? No one asks questions of play about cinema do they? So already right off the book for me starts off on the wrong foot. It focuses on some theories said sometime in the past, and this is actually a continued theme in the book.
Then the chapter proceeds to talk about a history of video games. It's a rich history, I hadn't known before they'd been some version of computer games since the '40s. One the '60s and '70s hit it's a pretty run of the mill history of video games. Then we get to the '90s and it's really just a list of popular games and consoles and some trends like online gaming. And that's it. Ten pages of history and the last crucial decades crammed into a scant few.
Look I'm not a hardcore game by any means. I rarely ever play the latest AAA titles, because of cost and also they're never as satisfying as they used to be. But the past 10-20 years of video games have been absolutely transformative. The entire profit mechanisms have these industries have changed and become more exploitative and more ripping off the consumer at the door. Rockstar literally just launched an actual casino where you can gamble your actual money away. FIFA has been fucking people over for years, because of how confusing it is to not spend money on microtransactions. And microtransactions! THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE FIFA GAMES NOW MAKE MORE MONEY FROM MICROTRANSACTIONS THAN ACTUAL GAME SALES!
Glaring omissions like this are ripe throughout the book. It's clear Woodcock just stuck to what he knew or could pull from a Google search. He tried to make this book something less journalistic and more academic by tying it to Marxist theory, but I don't think he has enough passing familiarity to even know some of the basic actual scams out there by major game studios.
Another example: Steam. The only negative mention of it in the book is modding, they tried charging for modding a few years ago. Fine yeah completely heinous practice. Absolutely write about it. But Steam is a gatekeeping platform. If you're an indie studio you have to bargain with them over the price of the game and when it goes on sale. As it turns out, Steam does similar practices that Amazon and Walmart have been doing to obtain low prices. And what about loot boxes?
Honestly this book misses so much, and it's very apparent where Woodcock did his homework and original work and where he just aggregated a bunch of pretty staid takes on the video game industry.
It's not all bad. The one part I enjoyed where clearly Woodcock did some original work was the one about developers organizing into a union, something we almost never hear about.
But in all honesty. You wanna know what kind of scams major video game industry players are, give the book and pass and just watch Jim Stirling on YouTube rant about whatever fucked up thing they've done that day. It's more informative than anything in this book.
February 14, 2023
Very through provoking book for someone who has spent a lot of time playing video games over the years. Video games are really interesting forms of media, they’re art to be admired and something to engage with, a reflection of our experiences and an escape from them. I think its important for the left to engage with video games as with other pop culture, and to apply a critical eye to the things we spend our time on.
Gave it 3 stars because it barely breaks the surface on online play and community building and doesnt mention sexism or gamergate until the last chapter when those themes could have been pervasive (though maybe better for a more focused work on gamergate).
Gave it 3 stars because it barely breaks the surface on online play and community building and doesnt mention sexism or gamergate until the last chapter when those themes could have been pervasive (though maybe better for a more focused work on gamergate).
December 25, 2022
Εξαιρετικό βιβλίο. Πολύ ενδιαφέρον τόσο για τη σύγχρονη μαρξιστική θεωρία όσο και για την εργασία των ανθρώπων σε αναδυόμενους κλάδους όπως η βιομηχανία των video games
May 20, 2022
The idea of dissecting how video game culture operates under late stage capitalism as its direct product and if it can thrive and survive sans the very system that birthed it is fascinating to me, despite my apparent lack of knowledge in this world (with the exception of Sims and maaaybe Pokemon). Major props to the author for rendering his complex ideas accessible in written format; it's exactly why I adore reading neo-marxist texts that reject the preconceived notion of a high and convoluted language. Note to the translators for the greek language:
a) ΓΕΙΑ ΣΟΥ ΜΙΝΩΤΑΚΗ! Πάντα ήξερα ότι είσαι τζινιους. Επιβεβαιώθηκα (πάλι). Ευχαριστώ για αυτή τη μετάφραση, δεν θα το διάβαζα ποτέ στο πρωτότυπο.
b) Η απόπειρα να γίνει gender neutral η ελληνική γλώσσα με την συνεχή εναλλαγή θηλυκού-αρσενικου στην αναφορά σε πρόσωπα ειδικά σε ένα ανδροκρατούμενο περιβάλλον, όπως ο κόσμος των video games, είναι πανέξυπνη ιδέα και τρομερά επιτυχημένη.
a) ΓΕΙΑ ΣΟΥ ΜΙΝΩΤΑΚΗ! Πάντα ήξερα ότι είσαι τζινιους. Επιβεβαιώθηκα (πάλι). Ευχαριστώ για αυτή τη μετάφραση, δεν θα το διάβαζα ποτέ στο πρωτότυπο.
b) Η απόπειρα να γίνει gender neutral η ελληνική γλώσσα με την συνεχή εναλλαγή θηλυκού-αρσενικου στην αναφορά σε πρόσωπα ειδικά σε ένα ανδροκρατούμενο περιβάλλον, όπως ο κόσμος των video games, είναι πανέξυπνη ιδέα και τρομερά επιτυχημένη.
December 17, 2020
É um livro divertido de ser lido, além de ser muito interessante para fazer um panorama do mundo dos Jogos eletrônicos dentro de uma visão marxista.
Achei um pouco simplista e faltando algumas doses de análise estética, mais centradas na forma do jogo como arte e suas diferenças em comparação às formas mais bem estabelecidas.
Ainda assim, foi uma boa leitura e me deu várias ideias para estudos daqui pra frente.
Achei um pouco simplista e faltando algumas doses de análise estética, mais centradas na forma do jogo como arte e suas diferenças em comparação às formas mais bem estabelecidas.
Ainda assim, foi uma boa leitura e me deu várias ideias para estudos daqui pra frente.
October 29, 2021
A surface level but by no means bad review of how Marxism intersects with the video game industry; it both uses the game industry to introduce basic concepts to readers who might not be acquainted with the theory, and then talks about how applying those concepts to the industry can yield new ideas about media production, worker inquiry, etc. It's well structured and has a ton of annotations and footnotes for whoever wants more.
March 28, 2019
This book tries to answer one question: how does the political writings and thoughts of Karl Marx relate to the world of videogames?
"To start at the very beginning, the National Museum of Play in New York claims that the very first videogame was a custom-built computer in 1940, the Nimatron." Since then, things have changed, including how videogames has become a major industry.
Another interesting point about the birth of videogames, is this:
Since then, things have changed, including how videogames has become a major industry. For example, videogames currently make up the majority (51.3 percent) of entertainment spending in the UK. Woodcock ends his historic recant with "Fortnite", in 2017. In other words, this book is current.
This place in the book, to me, is where it becomes interesting:
The capitalistic structure that is favored by most videogame studios, along with knowing that streaming is today fairly essential for non-console based gaming, makes for a highly competitive and volatile world:
Woodcock writes a little on how the military-industrial complex makes haste to help videogame studios:
Not far from the US military developing the hand grenade to feel like a baseball so that young men can easily start throwing them, right?
The next bit says a lot of how capitalism meets military secrecy:
That fades away in comparison with the following:
So, marketing weapons to children is commonplace in big parts of the videogames industry. If we think that's ludicrous, think about this instead:
Moving from how videogames are funded by people who like to sell killing machines, Woodcock writes of the extensive use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Naturally, software-development companies don't want their code to be revealed, nor their products talked about. However, NDAs seldom exist to consider the individuals behind their work role, and hence, NDAs hamper how badly videogame workers are treated.
Marx would undoubtedly have had something to say about worker rights, especially to voice their opinion about their work conditions.
Woodcock writes about sexism in the videogames industry, which is rife:
Woodcock goes into the monetary differences between female and male videogame workers. He also goes over issues of sexual abuse, of which women—regardless of profession, really—are subjected en masse.
Temporary workers are also gone into, and how "unskilled labour" is outsourced to workers who live in countries so that the employer can make as much money as possible.
The more industrialised a capitalist company becomes, the more it is likely to pigeon-hole its workers:
The concept of "crunch time" is explained; this is commonplace abuse in the software-development industry. Crunch time is long working hours, often unpaid, that end up changing people to their core. Stressful work, not only performed over long periods of time, but often expected by some companies, leads to depression, long sick leaves, and suicide. Web search for "Letter from an EA spouce", and you will see one oft-quoted example.
The best part, as Woodcock explains, is that "crunch time" is never a good idea:
Woodcock does bring one of Marx's maxims into play: the importance to allow workers to come together to have their voices heard. If their workplace cannot be partly owned by themselves, i.e. in another way than the capitalistic (which is, by definition, fascist in the hierarchical sense), workers must unionise:
He goes into detail by using a French videogame studio as example:
Woodcock provides both arguments for and details of what Marx would make of the videogames industry, in persuasive terms. However, he keeps a cool head, and envelops his theories in modern-day examples that anybody can understand, interested in videogames or not (I'm not).
This is something that should be read by all persons who have anything to do with the videogames industry, industries overall, but perhaps mainly by persons who think nothing is wrong in the videogames world.
I'd love to have read a bit more on diversity in the videogames society, but other than that, this is a very current, workplace-applicable, and likeable book. It's also easy to read, unlike a lot of politically argumentative books.
Videogames are a terrain of cultural struggle, shaped by work, capitalism, and ideas about society. Through the pages that follow, I will draw out the struggle and resistance that has marked videogames from the start, thinking about what that means for today.
"To start at the very beginning, the National Museum of Play in New York claims that the very first videogame was a custom-built computer in 1940, the Nimatron." Since then, things have changed, including how videogames has become a major industry.
Another interesting point about the birth of videogames, is this:
The technological basis for videogames was laid by the US military. As Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter have argued, “They originated in the U.S. military-industrial complex, the nuclear-armed core of capital’s global domination, to which they remain umbilically connected.”
Since then, things have changed, including how videogames has become a major industry. For example, videogames currently make up the majority (51.3 percent) of entertainment spending in the UK. Woodcock ends his historic recant with "Fortnite", in 2017. In other words, this book is current.
This place in the book, to me, is where it becomes interesting:
Imagine again, you sit down at your games console to play a game. Yes, your own play may become an important part of the game if you are playing online—after all, online games are no fun if you play on your own. But imagine if all the people whose labor contributed to that moment were standing with you there too. How many people would that be? This notion, that each part of the labor process becomes “congealed” (to use Marx’s term) within the videogame, gives us a sense of how complex contemporary videogame production has become.
I now turn to discuss the role of the videogames industry within capitalism. However, it is important to remember that the videogames industry “is an exemplary global business in that its dominant organizations share a strategic orientation which exceeds any particular territorial affiliation.” This means that the largest videogames companies operate beyond national boundaries, combining work processes across the world to maximize profits.
The capitalistic structure that is favored by most videogame studios, along with knowing that streaming is today fairly essential for non-console based gaming, makes for a highly competitive and volatile world:
The majority of profits are made on videogames in the weeks after they are launched, making product placement in physical locations key—along with launch events and so on. As one industry analysist explained: For the publishers it’s driven by the amount of time they have to make back their money. . . . On a big 100, 200-million-dollar launch, they only have 2 to 3 weeks to make back their initial investments.
Woodcock writes a little on how the military-industrial complex makes haste to help videogame studios:
The military saw the early potential for videogames to train soldiers and try out strategies, as with earlier kinds of war games that have been used extensively in the history of war. For example, in the 1980s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began working with developers to make training games.
Similarly, as a way to train the US Marine Corps modified Doom II, renaming it Marine Doom. The military later continued with this idea through extensive iterations, including Virtual Battlespace 2, used to train “thousands of troops sent to Afghanistan.” Similarly, the British military has “had to radically improve some of its simulated training war games to keep the attention of recruits” who grew up with the latest videogames.
The connection therefore strengthens through “game developers and war planners” having “overlapping interests in multimedia simulation and virtual experience,” resulting in greater collaboration and the subsidizing of the production of new games. This has involved direct crossovers between the games industry and the military—for example, a recruitment ad for the British Army features an unbranded Xbox controller flying a drone.
Not far from the US military developing the hand grenade to feel like a baseball so that young men can easily start throwing them, right?
The next bit says a lot of how capitalism meets military secrecy:
The process of finding military consultants proved easy for the developers of Call of Duty. As one of the developers explained: “We’ve been fortunate that the series has a lot of fans across military organizations, and within the entertainment industry.” They continued to note that “this draws a lot of interest, and a great deal of desire to help Call of Duty.”
However, offering an “unfiltered view from ‘the trenches’” has also proved problematic in practice. The use of Navy SEALs in Medal of Honor: Warfighter apparently involved divulging classified information, leading to official letters of reprimand. This “unfiltered view” appeared to involve information to which the public was not even supposed to be have access.
That fades away in comparison with the following:
Simon Parkin notes the history of companies sponsoring “imitation adult products to children,” citing the examples of candy cigarettes and Gibson’s licensing of plastic guitars. While this approach may make sense with computer peripherals in general, or sports cars in racing games, or even equipment in sports games, this is not as obvious in videogames about war—particularly when many gamers are children.
However, perhaps this may not come as so much of a surprise to readers in the US as it does to someone living in Britain, a country in which the idea of buying a gun is almost as unlikely as seeing an advert for one. Parkin found that “licensed weapons are commonplace in video games, but the deals between game makers and gun-manufacturer are shrouded.” None of the publishers he contacted were prepared to discuss the practice.
So, marketing weapons to children is commonplace in big parts of the videogames industry. If we think that's ludicrous, think about this instead:
Many arms companies have sold their products across a variety of conflicts, with the UK exporting over £7 billion of arms annually, and often to “repressive regimes.” However, the issue of who are considered “friends” and “enemies” serves the interests of the state, and is now reinforced in videogames too. As a result, “consumers have, for the past few years, unwittingly funded arms companies that often have their own military agendas.”
[...]
These connections between the military-industrial complex and the videogames industry go beyond simply consulting. In some cases, the coordination involves the direct involvement of the military, whereas in others it entails indirect involvement, including payment. However, this development marks an important divergence between the development of AAA games and that of indie games, particularly with regard to the differential levels of resources and (potential) access of AAA developers to military sources of funding.
Moving from how videogames are funded by people who like to sell killing machines, Woodcock writes of the extensive use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Naturally, software-development companies don't want their code to be revealed, nor their products talked about. However, NDAs seldom exist to consider the individuals behind their work role, and hence, NDAs hamper how badly videogame workers are treated.
This use of NDAs acts as an initial block to research, the sharing of information for purposes of comparison, and, of course, organizing. As an anonymous games developer explained, “I’ve lost count of the number of cold calls I’ve had from recruiters who can’t actually say what a project is, only that ‘I’ll like it.’”
They continued: “In interviews a couple of times, I’ve signed an NDA before I even took off my coat in a studio, and by the time I leave I still have no idea what they actually wanted to hire me for.” It is hard to imagine going to an interview without being told (or then being able to share) the details of a job in many other industries.
Marx would undoubtedly have had something to say about worker rights, especially to voice their opinion about their work conditions.
Woodcock writes about sexism in the videogames industry, which is rife:
Another aspect of this kind of relational or emotional labor is found in the work required to maintain videogame communities, with more women likely to be working in these roles than in the field of development.
Community managers have to use their skills to “mediate a range of problematic user behaviors,” ensuring that a healthy community is developed and sustained. This involves “passion, community, and online social relationships” that are “employed directly in both the recruitment and the logics of cultural production,” and therefore crucial to many videogames. Yet, despite this important role, “their creativity, translation, reporting, and management skills are undervalued while flexibility and instability are common.”
Woodcock goes into the monetary differences between female and male videogame workers. He also goes over issues of sexual abuse, of which women—regardless of profession, really—are subjected en masse.
According to the results, most of the workforce consists of young individuals, with 79 percent under the age of 35, and only 4.7 percent representation for Black and minority ethnic (BAME) workers. Only 14 percent identify as women—who also earn on average 15 percent less than men.
Yet another survey found that 45 percent “felt that their gender had been a limiting factor in their career progression, offering a significant barrier to their progress. A further 33 percent said that they had experienced direct harassment or bullying because of their gender.” This shocking set of statistics highlight the importance of considering gender, both within videogames, but also in the workplace itself.
Temporary workers are also gone into, and how "unskilled labour" is outsourced to workers who live in countries so that the employer can make as much money as possible.
The more industrialised a capitalist company becomes, the more it is likely to pigeon-hole its workers:
The result is a more regimented and managed labor process in which workers have lost the creative freedom that they may have had previously. However, management still faces a problem with standardizing work in the studio as “no one project resembles another,” with each still having differences.
These kinds of changes were also reflected by another developer, Jean-François Gagné, in his recollection of working on Assassin’s Creed: Basically, I didn’t know how to do “anything” anymore. I’ve worked on six Assassin’s Creed games. That was what I was doing since Brotherhood. AC, AC, AC and AC games. . . . I really knew how to do AC games but that was it! When you are doing the same thing over and over for years . . . you forget everything else. . . .
The concept of "crunch time" is explained; this is commonplace abuse in the software-development industry. Crunch time is long working hours, often unpaid, that end up changing people to their core. Stressful work, not only performed over long periods of time, but often expected by some companies, leads to depression, long sick leaves, and suicide. Web search for "Letter from an EA spouce", and you will see one oft-quoted example.
The best part, as Woodcock explains, is that "crunch time" is never a good idea:
Despite these clearly abusive policies, with all the personally devastating costs they incur, crunch time has never even been proven to be an effective managerial strategy. In one study it was found that “no matter how we analyze our data, we find that it loudly and unequivocally supports the anti-crunch side.” Not only did the study consider the negative effects for workers; it also demonstrated “that crunch doesn’t lead to extraordinary results.”
Furthermore “on the whole, crunch makes games LESS successful wherever it is used, and when projects try to dig themselves out of a hole by crunching, it only digs the hole deeper.”
The question, then, is why is the practice so widespread? If you ask the Fryes’ friend Karl Marx, the answer is simple: this extension of hours is an attempt to increase the value produced at work.
In view of this framework, it is clear that crunch is therefore a deliberate managerial strategy, not some sort of mistake or aberration. It is one of the major points of contention in the videogames industry. As Tanya Short, the cofounder of an indie studio, explained, “Many teams (indie and AAA alike) seem to start a project already calculating in crunch to the schedule for added content or productivity.”
Woodcock does bring one of Marx's maxims into play: the importance to allow workers to come together to have their voices heard. If their workplace cannot be partly owned by themselves, i.e. in another way than the capitalistic (which is, by definition, fascist in the hierarchical sense), workers must unionise:
Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) is one example of this process. TWC is a “coalition of workers in and around the tech industry, labor organizers, community organizers, and friends” that is based in the US, and particularly active in the Bay Area and Seattle. In the past few years, the network has gone from strength to strength. As R. K. Upadhya, a member of TWC, explained: “Since the 2016 elections in the US, there has been an unprecedented level of visible unrest among workers at all levels in the tech industry, from food service workers to programmers and engineers.”
He goes into detail by using a French videogame studio as example:
On February 14, twenty-one workers went on strike at Eugen Systems, a French videogames studio. Their statement, released through Le Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV, the Videogame Workers Union), read, “In the face of the refusal to pay us as required by law, and the manifest lack of consideration for the value of our work, we have come to the conclusion that, in order to make ourselves heard, we have no option but to go on strike.”
After thirty days on strike, one of the activists, Félix Habert, reflected on their experience by that point: “It’s rather hard when you’re just a bunch of people with no political experience.”
However, they had also discovered mistakes in how the company organized payments, crowdfunded $10,000 in strike funds, and made international news with their campaign. As one journalist reflected at the time, “It’s a small but symbolic labor dispute in one of the country’s most often praised economic sectors that could have ramifications for workers at other studios.”
The strike, which Habert described as “a very spontaneous movement,” ended in the second week of April, even though the strikers’ demands were not met. Some then chose to take legal action against the studio.
The STJV has continued to build from this strike, representing not only workers in the industry, but also students and unemployed workers. The union is now focusing on campaigns against unpaid internships, low wages for starting workers, and precarious contracts.
Woodcock provides both arguments for and details of what Marx would make of the videogames industry, in persuasive terms. However, he keeps a cool head, and envelops his theories in modern-day examples that anybody can understand, interested in videogames or not (I'm not).
This is something that should be read by all persons who have anything to do with the videogames industry, industries overall, but perhaps mainly by persons who think nothing is wrong in the videogames world.
I'd love to have read a bit more on diversity in the videogames society, but other than that, this is a very current, workplace-applicable, and likeable book. It's also easy to read, unlike a lot of politically argumentative books.
April 20, 2020
It’s strange for me to think just how engrossed I was in the gamer lifestyle when I was a kid. I think it might have been because I was an unmotivated, unimaginative kid, but I was deeply tuned into video games for as long as I could remember. My brother was into them, so he got me started, and I just upped the ante. I would read magazines, carefully weigh the pros and cons of a game if I was going to spend my hard-earned allowance on it, and wait it out when the new console season would happen to pick a winner. I had and Atari 2600, Atari 7800, NES, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Playstation, & PS2. Then, I realized that I was keeping up with news for a hobby I no longer had. I just stopped playing video games seriously. Maybe because I didn’t have the time, or thought they were a huge waste of my time. It was hard to do, but I had to stop my Electronic Gaming Monthly subscription. I’ve been happy watching video game culture from the sidelines, probably because it’s been embedded in myDNA. I can feel Super Mario Bothers 3, Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy 7 coursing through my veins. They’re part of me.
For someone who paid so much attention to video games as a kid, it’s funny how I never considered just what went into making my video games. That’s something Jamie Woodcock explores in his book Marx at the Arcade. I don’t think it’s news to anyone that video games and consoles aren’t exactly assembled in the US, and that’s not because other countries do it better, but because there’s some exploitation at play. The games might be designed and programmed here, but as you can imagine, they’re done within the current capitalist corporate framework, and as such, are subject to all the benefits and setbacks that come with it.
Marx at the Arcade follows a trajectory that’s efficient and easy to follow. First, Woodcock argues the importance of understanding how video games are made, because they are big business these days. Then, the company making video games lures in workers by associating the pleasure of playing a game with making one. Of course, they are two very different things: the company is simply trying to own the creativity needed to make games. Playing a game (a good one, at least), can be freeing, use creativity, or be mindless fun, while making a game involves a goals-based corporate structure, a hierarchy of roles, and long hours to the point of almost sacrificing your entire social life. At least that’s the case when you’re working for a bigger game developer. And this is an immense process, involving programmers, coders, designers, artists, engineers, testers and other talents numbering up to the hundreds. Each person’s task is boiled down to a deliverable, abstracted from the whole. Sometimes even the end product is deceptive, like with many first person shooters, which associate winning a war or battle with the actions of one soldier. A perfect advertisement for the army. Then, the game is assembled by low wage earning workers in sweatshop-like working conditions.
In the end, Woodcock argues that understanding how video games are made is important because it helps us further understand how capitalism works. It’s an important read for gamers and shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with how capitalism works on a grand scale in a corporation. This is a fresh angle on an old favorite.
For someone who paid so much attention to video games as a kid, it’s funny how I never considered just what went into making my video games. That’s something Jamie Woodcock explores in his book Marx at the Arcade. I don’t think it’s news to anyone that video games and consoles aren’t exactly assembled in the US, and that’s not because other countries do it better, but because there’s some exploitation at play. The games might be designed and programmed here, but as you can imagine, they’re done within the current capitalist corporate framework, and as such, are subject to all the benefits and setbacks that come with it.
Marx at the Arcade follows a trajectory that’s efficient and easy to follow. First, Woodcock argues the importance of understanding how video games are made, because they are big business these days. Then, the company making video games lures in workers by associating the pleasure of playing a game with making one. Of course, they are two very different things: the company is simply trying to own the creativity needed to make games. Playing a game (a good one, at least), can be freeing, use creativity, or be mindless fun, while making a game involves a goals-based corporate structure, a hierarchy of roles, and long hours to the point of almost sacrificing your entire social life. At least that’s the case when you’re working for a bigger game developer. And this is an immense process, involving programmers, coders, designers, artists, engineers, testers and other talents numbering up to the hundreds. Each person’s task is boiled down to a deliverable, abstracted from the whole. Sometimes even the end product is deceptive, like with many first person shooters, which associate winning a war or battle with the actions of one soldier. A perfect advertisement for the army. Then, the game is assembled by low wage earning workers in sweatshop-like working conditions.
In the end, Woodcock argues that understanding how video games are made is important because it helps us further understand how capitalism works. It’s an important read for gamers and shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with how capitalism works on a grand scale in a corporation. This is a fresh angle on an old favorite.
November 11, 2022
"Para citar Stuart Hall, mais uma vez, sobre o significado da cultura popular:
A cultura popular é um dos locais onde a luta a favor ou contra a cultura dos poderosos é engajada; é também o prêmio a ser conquistado ou perdido nessa luta. É a arena do consentimento e da resistência. Não é a esfera onde o socialismo ou uma cultura socialista – já formada – pode simplesmente ser “expressa”. Mas é um dos locais onde o socialismo pode ser constituído. É por isso que a cultura popular importa [...]. Caso contrário, para dizer a verdade, não dou a mínima pra isso."
Como um Gamer e alguém que se alinha mais à esquerda, recomendo o livro. Precisamos ocupar esses espaços, se não o inimigo toma conta, como nas redes sociais.
A cultura popular é um dos locais onde a luta a favor ou contra a cultura dos poderosos é engajada; é também o prêmio a ser conquistado ou perdido nessa luta. É a arena do consentimento e da resistência. Não é a esfera onde o socialismo ou uma cultura socialista – já formada – pode simplesmente ser “expressa”. Mas é um dos locais onde o socialismo pode ser constituído. É por isso que a cultura popular importa [...]. Caso contrário, para dizer a verdade, não dou a mínima pra isso."
Como um Gamer e alguém que se alinha mais à esquerda, recomendo o livro. Precisamos ocupar esses espaços, se não o inimigo toma conta, como nas redes sociais.
September 10, 2022
I can't believe this book respects the legacy of Marx and his theory (while others, with a richer background, have miserably failed).
A good in depth analysis that shows how capitalism benefits and reproduces ideology on an ignored cultural sphere.
It has some questionable statements (such as it's subtle and unfounded opposition to China's CP) but nothing too out of the ordinary.
A good in depth analysis that shows how capitalism benefits and reproduces ideology on an ignored cultural sphere.
It has some questionable statements (such as it's subtle and unfounded opposition to China's CP) but nothing too out of the ordinary.
November 30, 2022
Nice overview of the mode of production and consumption of videogames. Would have liked a deeper exploration of the specifics, but this is not what this is about. Recommended for people who are new to the topic.
August 1, 2024
Multidimensionally inspirational
I enjoyed the chapter progress; from "formal" to more "casual" and "entertaining"
It touched multiple aspects of my substance; a worker, a gamer, a social person, even an athlete.
Highly recommended for all my gamer friends.
( A con, as English is not my primary language, i struggled a bit with some of the terminology. I would suggest the translated version to one's native language, if there is )
I enjoyed the chapter progress; from "formal" to more "casual" and "entertaining"
It touched multiple aspects of my substance; a worker, a gamer, a social person, even an athlete.
Highly recommended for all my gamer friends.
( A con, as English is not my primary language, i struggled a bit with some of the terminology. I would suggest the translated version to one's native language, if there is )
December 10, 2023
as a videogame freak, this was lacking in the philosophy/art analysis side. still a good book.
December 15, 2020
Whelp, time to redistribute the experience points and share your inventory contents with your local commune comrades, gamers unite! (by which I mean, unions are important, and deeply required by videogames)
January 29, 2023
Uma leitura excelente, ainda que superficial, sobre diversos aspectos – históricos, trabalhistas e culturais – da indústria de jogos. Recomendado especialmente para quem busca entender os jogos digitais sob uma perspectiva crítica e dialético-materialista.
May 15, 2019
I received my copy from the publisher through Edelweiss+.
I grew up on video games and now all I do all day is watch Twitch lately, so this book is for me. I found the discussion of the role of the gaming industry in the modern economy to be interesting and well-written. I knew GTA V was big, but I had no idea just how big. And I knew EA was a trash company that makes trash games, so that was also fun to read about. The part about e-sports predicts figures for 2018 and this book comes out .. today. It came out today, May 14, 2019. Maybe that should have been updated.
I was more into the second half than the first half of the book though it was pretty funny to see which games Woodcock discussed. I won't fault him for being into bad games like Assassin's Creed because at least they didn't ruin his ability to think and write a decent book.
Imagine an entire section devoted to role-playing games in a book about Marxism that doesn't include any mention of the largely classless, communist structure in place in much of the world of Final Fantasy VIII. You don't need to imagine it because it's real, and it's this book.
I grew up on video games and now all I do all day is watch Twitch lately, so this book is for me. I found the discussion of the role of the gaming industry in the modern economy to be interesting and well-written. I knew GTA V was big, but I had no idea just how big. And I knew EA was a trash company that makes trash games, so that was also fun to read about. The part about e-sports predicts figures for 2018 and this book comes out .. today. It came out today, May 14, 2019. Maybe that should have been updated.
I was more into the second half than the first half of the book though it was pretty funny to see which games Woodcock discussed. I won't fault him for being into bad games like Assassin's Creed because at least they didn't ruin his ability to think and write a decent book.
Imagine an entire section devoted to role-playing games in a book about Marxism that doesn't include any mention of the largely classless, communist structure in place in much of the world of Final Fantasy VIII. You don't need to imagine it because it's real, and it's this book.
May 19, 2020
A very good book on the subject of why video games are important and why it is one of the cultural battlefields that leftists cannot and should not ignore. I like how the book is divided into two main sections: the developers part and the players part. While the chapters in the developers part are interesting, I personally find the chapters in the players section to be not as interesting. But this could be because I'm a game developer who's been following many of these discussions and discourses through game dev social network so the subject isn't new to me.
In any case, imo this is a good book for a leftist who wants to know more about video games, or left-leaning people who like video games and want to read more about Marxist analysis on some subjects regarding video games.
In any case, imo this is a good book for a leftist who wants to know more about video games, or left-leaning people who like video games and want to read more about Marxist analysis on some subjects regarding video games.
June 29, 2021
I was skeptical at first but Dr. Marx enlightened me along the way haha. Like many other things like internet memes and Ryanair fares, computer games wouldn’t come to existence without the US military-industrial complex, and this itself manifests its cultural importance. This book should really be a point of curiosity for many researches in art and humanitarian science, not only for those who identify themselves as marxists/activists/media studies ppl. I would even go further and say that while most games are not political yet it will soon come to a common agreement that class struggles cannot be explained, communicated, and advocated without the identity of computer game as a cultural genre.
December 28, 2020
A useful examination of videogames through a Marxist lens, covering the development of the form, the structure of the industry, workers' efforts to organize, and commentary on various videogame genres and the questions they raise.
I learned the most in the earlier sections. 10 pages each on five game genres simply doesn't go far enough to have an in-depth discussion. Still, each of those chapters seemed to hit the top-line issues to tackle in considering the genres explored.
A very accessible read for both just-gamers and just-Leftists.
I learned the most in the earlier sections. 10 pages each on five game genres simply doesn't go far enough to have an in-depth discussion. Still, each of those chapters seemed to hit the top-line issues to tackle in considering the genres explored.
A very accessible read for both just-gamers and just-Leftists.
July 1, 2022
I think this is an important book to read if you work, or play, videogames. That is not to say it's beyond criticism from a Marxist standpoint, far from it. Still, in a field where Marx is pretty much a forbidden word, it's good that this book exists, and it is written in such an approachable way.
At this time it would really benefit from an updated edition, since things have changed a lot even in the few years that have passed since its publication, not necessarily for the best.
At this time it would really benefit from an updated edition, since things have changed a lot even in the few years that have passed since its publication, not necessarily for the best.
May 9, 2020
An important topic to study, with generally well-researched analysis that only occasionally veers into “teenager listens to Manics and writes essay” territory.
January 18, 2021
Essential reading for leftist game designers
February 10, 2021
Pretty good introduction to the games industry and a good overview of the worker's movement on that segment
August 31, 2021
Livro muito bom, acredito que funciona melhor como uma introdução aos estudos da relação Marxismo-Videogames, ainda mais com a EXTENSA quantia de fontes bibliográficas, perfeito perfeito
July 24, 2019
Being a lapsed videogame fanatic (I unfortunately don't have the time these days) and lukewarm on Marxism, I came to "Marx at the Arcade" with a bit of trepidation. I expected either a long excoriating screed about how the blinking screens are just a new form of bread and circuses, or an impenetrable wall of specialist jargon that sapped all the life out of a subject that brings a lot of joy to a lot of people.
Thankfully, Mr. Woodcock likes video-games, too, and his sometimes-insightful critique muzzles neither his own nostalgic memories of his early game-play or his analysis of what other gamers enjoy doing these days. I found his analysis of how the military industrial complex and "shooter" games work on each other in a feedback loop to be fascinating, and also a bit of an overdue reproach; as a veteran of our sandbox fiascos and also as someone who doesn't like shooting things (even on a screen) these days, I thought the sections on the moral problems with war games (not the Matthew Broderick kind) was a long-overdue jeremiad. The Barry Levinson movie "Toys," about a lunatic general who uses a videogame program to use kids to remotely kill far-off foreigners is looking a little less implausible these days.
Sections on the "cognitariat," game designers (and game testers) were fascinating and well-handled, sympathetic portraits of bright people whose enthusiasm for gaming is exploited by unimaginative money men who grind every ounce (or pixel) of surplus labor they can squeeze from these people. Conversely, I was a bit underwhelmed by the cursory way the author barely bothered to treat the processes that go into literally acquiring and assembling the parts that make videogames, the mining, the assembly line, and so forth.
The book ends poorly, in my opinion, by trying to condense too much information in too few pages, in which James Woodcock tries to cover everything from the GamerGate controversy to a cultural of sexism pervading every facet of gamer culture, from the corporate offices to the design of female characters in games to the advertising of the titles. It isn't that I disagree with Woodcock's analysis in this final stretch of the book; it's that there's no analysis there, nor much of an attempt to connect the Marxist Weltanschaaung with the current perceptions of what would constitute equality, in terms of "social justice," which seems to be quasi-religious (or at least not materialist in the sense Marx meant it), and thus at odds with traditional Marxism. Marx would have been against gay marriage for instance, not because of enmity toward homosexuals, but due his belief in the exploitative nature of marriage as an institution, full stop (the exploitative nature of marriage would later be further expounded upon by philosopher Georg Simmel).
A cursory mention of the alt-right (invoked in passing as a snarl word here) also muddles the issue. To reiterate, it isn't that I disagree with what Jamie Woodcock is saying; it's that his analysis and explication prior to this point was clear, but is now not so much opaque as absent.
The book has its merits, but its demerits, too. All in all, though, an interesting interdisciplinary effort that mixes ludology and Marxism in a readable, informative, and entertaining way.
Thankfully, Mr. Woodcock likes video-games, too, and his sometimes-insightful critique muzzles neither his own nostalgic memories of his early game-play or his analysis of what other gamers enjoy doing these days. I found his analysis of how the military industrial complex and "shooter" games work on each other in a feedback loop to be fascinating, and also a bit of an overdue reproach; as a veteran of our sandbox fiascos and also as someone who doesn't like shooting things (even on a screen) these days, I thought the sections on the moral problems with war games (not the Matthew Broderick kind) was a long-overdue jeremiad. The Barry Levinson movie "Toys," about a lunatic general who uses a videogame program to use kids to remotely kill far-off foreigners is looking a little less implausible these days.
Sections on the "cognitariat," game designers (and game testers) were fascinating and well-handled, sympathetic portraits of bright people whose enthusiasm for gaming is exploited by unimaginative money men who grind every ounce (or pixel) of surplus labor they can squeeze from these people. Conversely, I was a bit underwhelmed by the cursory way the author barely bothered to treat the processes that go into literally acquiring and assembling the parts that make videogames, the mining, the assembly line, and so forth.
The book ends poorly, in my opinion, by trying to condense too much information in too few pages, in which James Woodcock tries to cover everything from the GamerGate controversy to a cultural of sexism pervading every facet of gamer culture, from the corporate offices to the design of female characters in games to the advertising of the titles. It isn't that I disagree with Woodcock's analysis in this final stretch of the book; it's that there's no analysis there, nor much of an attempt to connect the Marxist Weltanschaaung with the current perceptions of what would constitute equality, in terms of "social justice," which seems to be quasi-religious (or at least not materialist in the sense Marx meant it), and thus at odds with traditional Marxism. Marx would have been against gay marriage for instance, not because of enmity toward homosexuals, but due his belief in the exploitative nature of marriage as an institution, full stop (the exploitative nature of marriage would later be further expounded upon by philosopher Georg Simmel).
A cursory mention of the alt-right (invoked in passing as a snarl word here) also muddles the issue. To reiterate, it isn't that I disagree with what Jamie Woodcock is saying; it's that his analysis and explication prior to this point was clear, but is now not so much opaque as absent.
The book has its merits, but its demerits, too. All in all, though, an interesting interdisciplinary effort that mixes ludology and Marxism in a readable, informative, and entertaining way.
November 13, 2020
While this was an enjoyable enough read, I was disappointed that the Marxist analysis that seemed to be promised was as shallow as it was. The main problem seems to be, especially earlier on, that Dr. Woodcock perhaps go too far afield while surveying various gaming titles and their relation to various topics throughout the book. For me, focus being put on just a few case studies with more emphasis on the analysis would have been more instructive. A later example using the Civilization series was a right step in this regard, but even this just constituted half a chapter and focused on just a few narrow ideas (albeit good ideas to focus on for such a title).
The beginning of Part II ("Playing Videogames") begins with a small chapter which appears to function as a sort of introductory chapter to Part II titled "Analyzing Culture". It runs through Marx and Engel's base/superstructure conception of society and social relations. This is of course a good start, but this chapter wasn't put to good use throughout the remaining chapters of the book. The chapter itself is little more than an explanation of the base/superstructure concept as posited by Marx and Engel and only adds a tiny smattering from more modern (in cultural terms) perspectives. After this chapter the terms of base and superstructure rarely appear again, if at all. By the time we reach the final content chapter of the book ("Online Play") we seemed to have mostly forgone consideration of the "base" when looking at the phenomenon of GamerGate and the sexism and racism so prevalent in video games, with a passing paragraph or two about marketing in the 80s and 90s by Nintendo and Sony.
I do want to give some credit though, almost any one of these chapters by themselves could have been expanded and made into a very interesting book by itself, and for that matter these are interesting thoughts and topics, I just feel that they were each spread a bit thin in the attempt to cover so much ground. I will also say that the sort of "wide survey" nature of the book does create a structure that delivers a lot of interesting factoids and tidbits, and if you have played video games for awhile you are certainly going to come across a reference to a game that you've played. Finally I did really enjoy his plug for the Game Workers Unite that he covers in the end of Part I and again in the conclusion to the book, it is certainly something that I enjoyed reading about and was left with wanting to look more into where that movement stands now.
So yeah, not bad overall, a bit of a mixed bag. Dr. Woodcock references and quotes often from a book called "Games of Empire" by de Peuter and Dyer-Witherford which from what I read in this book would be a good book to look into as well.
The beginning of Part II ("Playing Videogames") begins with a small chapter which appears to function as a sort of introductory chapter to Part II titled "Analyzing Culture". It runs through Marx and Engel's base/superstructure conception of society and social relations. This is of course a good start, but this chapter wasn't put to good use throughout the remaining chapters of the book. The chapter itself is little more than an explanation of the base/superstructure concept as posited by Marx and Engel and only adds a tiny smattering from more modern (in cultural terms) perspectives. After this chapter the terms of base and superstructure rarely appear again, if at all. By the time we reach the final content chapter of the book ("Online Play") we seemed to have mostly forgone consideration of the "base" when looking at the phenomenon of GamerGate and the sexism and racism so prevalent in video games, with a passing paragraph or two about marketing in the 80s and 90s by Nintendo and Sony.
I do want to give some credit though, almost any one of these chapters by themselves could have been expanded and made into a very interesting book by itself, and for that matter these are interesting thoughts and topics, I just feel that they were each spread a bit thin in the attempt to cover so much ground. I will also say that the sort of "wide survey" nature of the book does create a structure that delivers a lot of interesting factoids and tidbits, and if you have played video games for awhile you are certainly going to come across a reference to a game that you've played. Finally I did really enjoy his plug for the Game Workers Unite that he covers in the end of Part I and again in the conclusion to the book, it is certainly something that I enjoyed reading about and was left with wanting to look more into where that movement stands now.
So yeah, not bad overall, a bit of a mixed bag. Dr. Woodcock references and quotes often from a book called "Games of Empire" by de Peuter and Dyer-Witherford which from what I read in this book would be a good book to look into as well.
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