Ludotariat: problematizing the gaming class

The paper aims to describe and problematize the notion of 'ludotariat'.Introduced by Bruno Vtel (2013) as a critical alternative to the concept of playbourers, and strictly connected with the critique of economy, the notion of 'ludotariat' has not been widely adopted in game studies.Vtel defined the notion according to the growing interest in grinding, farming, playbour, and research on Real Money Trading (RMT), but curiously without references to the most influential critical works at the time (Dyer-Witheford & Peuter, 2009;Kcklich, 2005).In his work ludotariat designates "those who contribute to society solely through their capacity to play and we could add, not through their capacity to enjoy themselves, but their capacity to produce inside a game."(Vtel, 2013, p. 6).Using this definition as the basis of my approach, I would like to introduce three original problematizations that expand and rewrite the original concept.In my reworking of this concept I want to differentiate ludotariat from playbour, so I will not go with the reviewer's suggestions to include players working for other players into this class.In my analysis I lean closer to describing ludotariat along the lines of Graeber's reflection on bullshit jobs (Graeber 2018, 23).