Gold farms and Elo platforms: On the spatial politics of game service work

Still enjoying the image as a liberal, creative and non-hierarchical industry associated with fun and play, the global gaming industry is often seen as antithetical to work and waged labour. However, beyond the labour that goes into the production, distribution and publication of video games, the digital spaces of these games themselves have also become sites for service work, which a growing number of people across the globe are dependent on to make ends meet. In this article, I analyse the spatial politics of game service work, a form of digital work that manipulates the playful spaces of multiplayer video games and, in the process, reshapes the political economy of gaming. In doing so, the article situates the fast-growing political economy of game services in the tradition of labour geography by tracing the spatial conditions and politics of this form of digital labour. Through a discussion of the much-analysed example of ‘Chinese gold farmers’ and a discussion of the recent, yet under-researched growth of game services on what I call ‘Elo platforms’, the article suggests that the digital spaces of online multiplayer video games are not only sites for capital accumulation but also emerge as economic spaces for labour to make a living. The article argues that the reappropriation of these digital game spaces not only grants insights into current struggles between capital and labour but also illustrates the crucial role of workers in making new economic spaces of and for production in contemporary capitalism.