Playing for Keeps: Digital Labor and Precarity in Play-to-Earn Gaming
Topics:
Keywords: precarity, digital labor, playbour, play-to-earn, GameFi, Axie Infinity
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Authors:
Gordon Kuo Siong Tan, Singapore University of Technology and Design
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Abstract
A new economic phenomenon has emerged where gamers can earn money simply by playing blockchain based games and accumulating cryptocurrency tokens. This “play-to-earn” (P2E) gaming model has drawn a huge following of economically struggling players who are mainly concentrated in the Global South. Using the immensely popular P2E game Axie Infinity as a case study, this paper positions P2E gaming as an emerging form of digital work. The concept of ‘playbor’ is mobilized to trace the evolution of video gaming as labor that illustrates the increasing blurring of work and play. Framing P2E with a precarity lens challenges celebratory accounts of P2E’s revolutionary economic power, by showing how capital-labor relationships are reworked under specific digital labor practices that promote rentier relationships, as well as how P2E’s embeddedness within broader cryptocurrency markets and the blockchain system can produce precarity among gamers. Such precarity is manifested in volatile earnings, job insecurity, aggressive competition among players and weak bargaining power. The critical role of game design and software code in reinforcing precarity in P2E gamers is discussed, reflecting the ongoing financialization of video gaming that is facilitated by blockchain technologies.
Playing for Keeps: Digital Labor and Precarity in Play-to-Earn Gaming
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
