2025/01/24 by Zoe Zhao · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · #FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance
paper · doi:10.1093/sf/soaf009
openalex publication_date 2025/01/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The concept of “work games” in labor process theory has found numerous applications across different workplaces since the 1970s, from assembly lines to IT firms. Wu’s Play to Submission not only revitalizes and significantly expands this literature but also brings a much-needed political economy perspective to game studies. This technological ethnography centers around Pipe Org, a 60-person department within Behemoth, a leading tech company described by its employees as decentralized and flexible. Based on 13 months of fieldwork spanning from 2013 to 2019, Wu introduces an often-overlooked cohort in tech ethnographies: the Gamer Generation. This refers to core tech workers in U.S. companies—particularly white engineers—who grew up during the 1990s, a time when video games rapidly emerged as a dominant entertainment medium. Many of these engineers, having spent their youth modding games, were inspired to pursue programming as a dream career. Through a series of vivid storytelling and theoretical interventions, Wu explores how gaming culture—especially the sociality of competitive online games—not only shapes worker interactions but also indirectly influences labor control and labor power extraction through various “work games.” Unlike classic labor games analysis, where control is often tied to a single dominant work game, Wu demonstrates that labor control in this context emerges from a field of games actively co-created by both workers and managers.