Gameplay as design: uses of computer players’ immaterial labour

The primary mode of reception in computer games is play. This implies that the agency performed by computer players does not limit itself to the process of reading, but is constituted by a creative enactment of the structures of interactive actions and events inherent in the game. As such, gameplay may be regarded as a kind of (unpaid) immaterial labour, implying players’ socialization, creativity, and a general intellect, that is, the ability to appropriate and rework the computer game as a work of culture. This article investigates the immaterial labour of computer players and discusses how this is being put to work by the game industry at different levels – as a means of producing fascinating game experiences and by means of including player agency as a productive force in gamedesign processes – thus connecting it to the economy of computer-game production. The purpose of this article is to investigate the medium of the computer game not only as a cultural artefact, but also as an economic institution. Along with other observers like De Peuter and Dyer-Withford (2005) and Kline et al. (2003), we argue that the computer game provides a paradigmatic manifestation of the logic of contemporary media-saturated informational capital. This paradigmatic status derives chiefly from the fact that the value of a computer game builds primarily on its ability to appropriate and capture various forms of immaterial labour. As it has been developed by various thinkers over the recent decade such as Lazzarato (1997), Hardt and Negri (2004), and Gorz (2003), the term ‘immaterial labour’ has come to refer to those productive activities that rely primarily on an activation of linguistic, communicative and affective skills (Lazzarato 1997; Hardt and Negri 2004; Gorz 2003). It is a matter of putting to work the human capacity to create a common world by means of language (cf. Arendt 1958), as this capacity has been enhanced and shaped by various media technologies. As De Peuter and Dyer-Withford (2005) have shown, the production of computer games provides an almost ideal example of the position of paid immaterial labour within the informational economy. Computer-game production is transnational and it relies on selfregulating productive networks. Labour is motivated by an ethic of enforced creativity and disciplinary freedom (in the sense that if you do not employ your freedom to be creative you have no career) and the end DAC 5 89–104 © Intellect Ltd 2007 89