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Matt Bastin-Millar

A Playful Multitude...Redditing again. - 16 views

started by Matt Bastin-Millar on 11 Mar 14
  • Matt Bastin-Millar
    #1 Matt Bastin-Millar on 11 Mar 14
     
    In yesterday's great discussion on games & simulations, a bit less attention was paid to de Peuter and Dyer-WItheford's Marxist critique of immaterial labour. Having worked in the high-tech/startup environment a few times over my short career, this article spoke to me pretty profoundly. Not only were the critiques that de Peuter and Dyer-Witheford scathing, but they were accurate - not just of the game development world, but indeed of many if not most companies in the high-tech and startup world. In my incessant trolling of Reddit, I happened upon a pretty timely blurb written by a programmer - really in keeping with this article on immaterial game labour - here's the link: http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/2026bq/reduce_the_workweek_to_30_hours_nyt/cfzlgiw

    I thought I'd link to this repost of a blog article that's related to this topic too - interestingly, it circulated around my workplace (which could be the topic of her article, as could any number of similar outfits) and spurred some really interesting debates within the company around culture, work-as-play, gender, and overtime/unpaid work. Worth a read: http://betabeat.com/2013/02/what-your-culture-really-says-shanley-kane-toxic-lies-afoot-in-silicon-valley/

    M
  • Chris Milando
    #2 Chris Milando on 12 Mar 14
     
    Thanks for sharing this Matt! I really wish we had a chance to talk more about the de Peuter and Dyer-Witherford's article, but it didn't necessarily fit in with the topic of video games and the study of history. However, I think this article deserved its own class to be discussed with other readings about the same issue.

    I was going to show a clip from the bonus features of God of War III - after you beat the game, you get to see a mini-documentary about the process of creating the game and what it was like to work at Santa Monica Studio.
    You can watch a clip of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBHGs8HoYuo
    It's strange because I can't tell if they actually have as much fun working as the video makes it seem, or if the higher ups cut out negative interviews or comments by members of the team. There is a point where they begin discussing crunch time (http://youtu.be/uBHGs8HoYuo?t=23m21s), but we don't get to hear any real complaints from the team, which I thought was kind of odd.
    Brian and I discussed the video a few days ago and he mentioned that it wouldn't really make sense for the company to make the gamer feel bad about what they're playing , and I realized that if we knew about all of the labour involved in making the games we play, we probably wouldn't play them as much (just as we might stop eating most of our favourite foods if we knew how they were made).
    I'm not very well versed in Marxist theory, but I'm pretty sure I read something about how this works with Capitalism - the labour that goes into a commodity is erased or made as invisible as possible so that the nicely packaged item you buy looks as if it hasn't been touched by human hands. This way, we don't have to think about what we're buying.
    If anyone knows where I might have read this from, let me know - I'd like to get a refresher on Marxist theory.

    The reddit link really helps to contextualize the idea of immaterial labour outside of the gaming industry, and it got me wondering if it exists outside the working world as well.
    Do you think that schools operate in this manner to a degree? Can we consider homework as a sort of immaterial labour? There has already been scholarship and debates on whether students necessarily need to do work and readings outside of school, and although I'm not going to get into the topic much, these are a couple of neat things to look at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10101361/School-bans-homework-to-give-pupils-more-family-time.html,
    http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-schools-give-homework,
    http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/the-finland-phenomenon-inside-the-worlds-most-surprising-school-system-588.php,
    and http://cdn.slowrobot.com/3420131500195.jpg.
    (This isn't a topic that needs to be discussed, I just thought it was interesting to see how the concept of immaterial labour can be discussed outside the video game industry - and maybe could help us think of other ways immaterial labour affects our lives).
  • Christina Stokes
    #3 Christina Stokes on 15 Mar 14
     
    I also enjoyed the De Peuter article but I was wondering if this is still an ongoing issue then why has their not been a strike of EA workers and why is it that the publicity of the injustice of the overtime hours programmers and designers work was from a disgruntled spouse as mentioned in the blog post the "EA: Human Story." One thing that the article did make clear was that companies are dependent on their designers mid way through a project for its completion, then the employee has power to refuse overtime or organize collectively to strike against an unfair system. In my opinion the nature of this industry will not change unless their is an organized petition against these unfair work conditions. The De Peuter and Dyer-Witheford article is a start towards spreading awareness of the unfair work environment but the movement has to start with the workers themselves to change the unfair system of immaterial labor.
  • Alessandro Marcon
    #4 Alessandro Marcon on 18 Mar 14
     
    It seems as though a looser and 'freer' work environment, where employees can spend as much time at work as they please, has two converse effects. On one hand, it allows for an incredible amount of flexibility concerning schedules which might maximize productivity while simultaneously allowing passionate enthusiasts to make the most of their creative potential. Conversely, it seems to create a culture of high (or absurd) expectations whereby one working efficiently and effectively working the norm is somehow penalized. As the second article which Matt posted alludes to ("What Your Culture Really Says"), having a lack of clearly-defined and openly-discussed workplace structures on the surface appears to create a 'freer' environment, but it might just be a case of obfuscating the very real and present authorial structures thus fostering greater degrees of symbolic violence and worker alienation. The problem is that workers, especially young ones, who, as mentioned in de Peuter and Dyer-WItheford's article, might be working their first professional jobs are completely unaware of what kinds of rights they have or should have. Companies should definitely provide spaces for employees to discuss their work culture, as well as outline in a clear manner the kinds of values the company strives to adhere to. Without these set parameters in place, workers have nothing to rally against. They could very well accept the alienation they feel as some kind of 'norm' that takes place everywhere.

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