Labor Games, Citizenship, and Control: Book Review Essay of Weststar &amp; Legault and Wu Legault, M. and Weststar, J. (2024). <i>Not All Fun and Games: Videogame Labour, Project-based Workplaces, and the New Citizenship at Work</i> . Montreal: Conco

As the game and tech industries face ongoing challenges, such as layoffs, employee overwork, and burnout, as well as responses, such as rising pushes for unionization, we have seen increasing amounts of scholarly work on these industries and their workers. Many existing studies, however, emerge from media studies, game studies, and cultural industries spaces, meaning they tend to theorize the game industry through these lenses, rather than engaging existing research in labor and occupation studies. The two books reviewed here begin the process of marrying these fields more closely, using theories of citizenship at work and labor games to explore worker agency and structural constraints in the game and tech industries. This review essay summarizes both titles and provides an overview of their strengths and weaknesses. It concludes that both books provide excellent additions to the field of game production studies, promoting new approaches to understanding what work does and could look like in these industries.

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Publication Details

Journal
Work and Occupations
Published
2025-04-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884251334667
Primary Topic
Digital Economy and Work Transformation
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Labor Games, Citizenship, and Control: Book Review Essay of Weststar & Legault and Wu Legault, M. and Weststar, J. (2024). Not All Fun and Games: Videogame Labour, Project-based Workplaces, and the New Citizenship at Work . Montreal: Conco

Amanda C. Coté
Work and Occupations
Digital Economy and Work Transformation
article

Labor Games, Citizenship, and Control: Book Review Essay of Weststar & Legault and Wu Legault, M. and Weststar, J. (2024). Not All Fun and Games: Videogame Labour, Project-based Workplaces, and the New Citizenship at Work . Montreal: Conco

Amanda C. Coté
article en

Abstract

As the game and tech industries face ongoing challenges, such as layoffs, employee overwork, and burnout, as well as responses, such as rising pushes for unionization, we have seen increasing amounts of scholarly work on these industries and their workers. Many existing studies, however, emerge from media studies, game studies, and cultural industries spaces, meaning they tend to theorize the game industry through these lenses, rather than engaging existing research in labor and occupation studies. The two books reviewed here begin the process of marrying these fields more closely, using theories of citizenship at work and labor games to explore worker agency and structural constraints in the game and tech industries. This review essay summarizes both titles and provides an overview of their strengths and weaknesses. It concludes that both books provide excellent additions to the field of game production studies, promoting new approaches to understanding what work does and could look like in these industries.

Work and OccupationsVol. 52(4)
Michigan State University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 90%
Digital Economy and Work Transformation
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