Critical research into games and player labour has shown that player creators remain disempowered despite the impact of their work. On the other hand, player-creators enjoy their work, they freely and in an informed manner consent to working without pay, and they can use their unpaid labour as experience and CV-entries. This paper aims to critically discuss these arguments in the light of a specifically chosen case study. The analysis is informed by expert interviews of player creators and it uses Carpentier’s (2016) analytic framework for participatory processes. This analysis of the power relationship between player creators and game developer is elemental for the discussion around unpaid player labour. In this case the company has enough power to purposefully keep the involvement of players secret which supports the notion of exploitation of free labour. The discussion suggests possible ways forward and connects to the ongoing unionization movement in the industry.

1. 1

2. Is this still participation? A case study of the
disempowerment of player labourers
Patrick Prax
Department of Game Design, Uppsala University
patrick.prax@speldesign.uu.se

3. Today
1. Extend of Player Participation
2. Player Participation and Power
3. Case description
4. Analysis and Conclusion
5. What can be done to resist?
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10. Dota 2 The International

13. Player Participation as…
• … a kind of play (Bartle, 2004 vs. Malaby 2007)
[for more detail see Pearce 2006; Pearce,
Boellstorff, and Nardi 2011; Taylor 2006a,
2006b, 2009]
• … financial profit (Postigo, 2007; 2010)
• exploitation (Terranova, 2003), precarity
(Kücklich, 2005), and power struggles (Kow and
Nardi, 2010a)
• … co-creative game design (Prax, 2016)

14. Player Participation as…
… a kind of open innovation (Banks, 2013; Banks and
Humphreys, 2008; Henry Jenkins and Banks 2014)
(1) player creators enter freely into the relationship
with the game company with the understanding that
they will work for free
(2) there is a mutual benefit as a result of the
collaboration of players and the development company
(3) players enjoy their co-creative activities
Banks (2017) adopts a more critical approach

15. Theoretical Frames I
• “hope labour” (Kuehn and Corrigan, 2013) where
the possibility of future earnings is motivating free
work
• self-exploitation where the worker is carrying all the
risk of the content production in platform capitalism
(Srnicek, 2016)
• “aspirational labour” (Duffy, 2016; 2017) for future
earnings or positions which are insecure and elusive
and are connected to discrimination along the lines
of gender and potentially other categories

16. Participation
• Political participation vs. sociological
participation (Jenkins & Carpentier, 2013:271)
• “processes with equal power relations in
decision-making” (Jenkins & Carpentier,
2013:271; also Carpentier, 2015:15)
• Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation (1969)
• Full participation (Pateman, 1970)

17. The Ladder of Participation, (Arnstein, 1969:217)
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Carpentier (2016)

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Carpentier (2016)

20. Method
• Critical play
• Interface study
• Focused semi-structures interviews with
experts and members of the Task Force
• Deliberate choice of also critical player creator
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21. Illustrated by0 Wang

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26. Analysis
1. Who decides on what?
2. How equal are the power relations in the
decision-making moment?
3. How equal are the power relations in
general?
4. Evaluate the (un)balanced nature of the
power position of privileged and non-
privileged actors
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27. Who decides on what?
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28. R&M Leisure Scotland

29. Who decides on what?
• Blizzard provides the vision and has final
control over implementation
• Player creators pitch solutions and implement
them
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30. How equal are the power relations
in the decision-making moment?
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31. M. Alice

32. How equal are the power relations
in the decision-making moment?
• Players can refuse to work and loose their
previous investment in add-ons
• Player creators can leverage some support
from players as customers
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33. How equal are the power relations
in general?
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34. Acid the meme machine

35. How equal are the power relations
in general?
• Blizzard controls the platform
• Player influence as customers is limited (if it
even qualifies as political participation)
• Resistance through Easter-egg hiding of the
names of the contributors in the code of the
game
• No more “hope labour” (Kuehn and Corrigan,
2013)
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37. Evaluate privileged and non-
privileged actors
• Blizzard as privileged actor
• Power over technology, but also threat of legal
consequences in case of a conflict
• Player creators as non-privileged
• “Aspirational labour” (Duffy, 2016; 2017) and
discrimination along the lines of for example
gender are systematic in donated high-skill
labour.
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38. Open Innovation?
(1) player creators enter freely into the
relationship with the game company with the
understanding that they will work for free;
(2) there is a mutual benefit as a result of the
collaboration of players and the development
company;
(3) players enjoy their co-creative activities.

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44. The Participatory Future in the
Industry?
• How do you see yourselves in platform
capitalism (Srnicek, 2016)? Up-stream or
downstream?
• Where do you think platform owners see you?
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46. Organize.
Educate (yourselves as) players and modders.
Start kicking up.
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49. Is this still participation? A case study of the
disempowerment of player labourers
Patrick Prax
Department of Game Design, Uppsala University
patrick.prax@speldesign.uu.se