Game Modding, Prosumerism and Neoliberal Labor Practices

Abstract

The article describes the convergence of neoliberal subjectivities and the digital labor of game modding. The entrepreneurialism associated with neoliberal subjectivities represents an extension in the critique of digital labor, a mode that allows corporations to extract more value from participatory activities. Using textual materials and interviews, this article highlights the attempts by game industries to discursively situate the activity of game modification, producing norms that energize the productivity of modders and render their labor more amenable to the circuits of accumulation. It understands these emergent subjectivities in relation to the modders’ desire for professionalization, creative self-expression, and acts of resistance.