Chapter 14: Games Production in Australia – Adapting to Precariousness
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In this chapter, we pay full attention to the structural conditions and human cost of precarious labor in a particular local instance of the games industry. But at the same time, we attempt to shift the debate on precarity from the existential (the creative individual attracted to industries promising autonomy and meaningful work and finding only casualization, no work/life balance, and poor management) and the totalizing (all work under regimes of neoliberal hypercapitalism is increasingly characterized by precarity; indeed a whole new class—the precariat¹—is posited as emerging) to a focus on analysis for actionable reform.
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14.1: Introduction
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Introduction to the goal of the chapter: analyzing labor precarity in the Australian games industry, in terms of structural conditions and human cost, as a symptom of the emergence of a new global class of worker, the precariat. A brief history of the Australian games industry, focusing on the post-global financial crisis era.
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14.2: They Still Make Games
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Surveying the identities and motivations of several Australian game development studios, with a focus on indie developers. Analyzing how the shared pride in having survived the financial crisis has led developers to desire making original IPs, and the various economic strategies necessary to achieve this goal compared to the lesser precarity of fee-for-service work.
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14.3: Precariousness as a Function of Policy and Industry Cultures
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Ways in which precarity in the Australian games industry arises from government policy, professional advocacy, and poor management within the industry.
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14.4: Conclusion
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Strategies for reform of the games industry, so that innovation and creativity can be a part of stable jobs.
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14.5: Notes
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