"Jamie Woodcock has written a book as fun and engrossing as any
game. Not only does he bring a sharp Marxist analysis to the
videogames industry--in turn, he uses games to further our
understanding of Marx. Whether you game or not, an indispensable
book." —Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in
Revolt
"In his delightful Marx at the Arcade, Jamie Woodcock launches
an urgently-needed workers’ inquiry into video and computer
games—investigating both the work that goes into producing such
games and the play in which so many of us seek relief from
constant work. Lucid, scholarly, energetic and itself
playful, Marx at the Arcade sets a new frontier for
radical political understanding of the digital game." —Nick
Dyer-Witheford
"Marx at the Arcade is an important, brilliant and timely read that
reveals the oft-ignored lives of overworked and exploited game
workers, as well as the rise of the global Game Workers Unite
movement that is fighting for change. Placing games within the
context of a wider cultural and political struggle, Woodcock makes
a compelling case for combating the toxic and reactionary elements
of games culture, and pushing games towards a more positive,
radical role in the world." —Karn Bianco, Games Workers Unite
"Combining the unalloyed enthusiasm of the gamer with the critical
gaze of the historical materialist, Jamie Woodcock's book cracks
open the console to reveal the struggles over value, labour and the
meaning of play that haunt the world of videogames. Even readers
who last played a videogame in an arcade will gain much from this
lucid and combative exploration of the industry that organizes the
"free time" of countless millions."—Alberto Toscano, Reader in
Critical Theory, Goldsmiths, University of London, author of
Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea
Jamie Woodcockis a sociologist of work, focusing on digital labour, the gig economy, and resistance. He is currently a fellow at the London School of Economics, and is the author of the award-winning Working the Phones (2016). He is on the editorial board of the Historical Materialism and an editor of Notes from Below, an online journal of workers' inquiry.
"Rejecting both fanboy boosterism and moralistic
denunciations, Marx at the Arcade offers a refreshing
approach to video games analysis. Woodcock never loses sight of the
fact that the material conditions behind game production shapes the
stories games tell and how they tell them, but does not reduce its
analysis of the medium to these material conditions. The book
highlights how it feels to actually play a game, what makes it fun,
and why that participatory aspect matters when discussing what a
game communicates as a cultural product." —Jacobin
"Marx at the Arcade. Consoles, Controllers, and Class Struggle by
Jamie Woodcock is a seminal text if you want to understand the
power dynamics behind the production, distribution and consumption
of video games, seen as cultural products through a Marxist lens."
—Il Manifesto
"Jamie Woodcock has written a book as fun and engrossing as any
game. Not only does he bring a sharp Marxist analysis to the
videogames industry--in turn, he uses games to further our
understanding of Marx. Whether you game or not, an indispensable
book." —Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in
Revolt
"In his delightful Marx at the Arcade, Jamie Woodcock launches
an urgently-needed workers’ inquiry into video and computer
games—investigating both the work that goes into producing such
games and the play in which so many of us seek relief from
constant work. Lucid, scholarly, energetic and itself
playful, Marx at the Arcade sets a new frontier for
radical political understanding of the digital game." —Nick
Dyer-Witheford
"Marx at the Arcade is an important, brilliant and timely read that
reveals the oft-ignored lives of overworked and exploited game
workers, as well as the rise of the global Game Workers Unite
movement that is fighting for change. Placing games within the
context of a wider cultural and political struggle, Woodcock makes
a compelling case for combating the toxic and reactionary elements
of games culture, and pushing games towards a more positive,
radical role in the world." —Karn Bianco, Games Workers Unite
"Combining the unalloyed enthusiasm of the gamer with the critical
gaze of the historical materialist, Jamie Woodcock's book cracks
open the console to reveal the struggles over value, labour and the
meaning of play that haunt the world of videogames. Even readers
who last played a videogame in an arcade will gain much from this
lucid and combative exploration of the industry that organizes the
"free time" of countless millions."—Alberto Toscano, Reader in
Critical Theory, Goldsmiths, University of London, author of
Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea
“In this highly readable, up-to-the-minute counter-guide to
videogame work and play, Jamie Woodcock skillfully breaks play out
of the “magic circle,” not only revealing capitalism’s shaping
influence on digital game culture but also restoring a political
perspective on games as a site of struggle. Whether revisiting game
history, analyzing individual games, unpacking the distinctiveness
of the game commodity, or reporting on the increasingly contested
working conditions of game developers, Woodcock richly illustrates
the use value of Marxian concepts to the critical study of game
media.” —Greig de Peuter, co-author of Games of Empire:
Global Capitalism and Video Games
“We, as people broadly on the left, have neglected gaming at our
peril. Jamie Woodcock’s Marx at the Arcade represents an important
step into that fray—theorizing play, games, and their labour from
the left.” –Manchester Gaming Studies Network
“On the face of it, Marxists might not seem to have all that much
to say about video games and gamers might not necessarily have all
that much interest in Marx. But Jamie Woodcock’s brilliant book
explains why they both should.” –Morning Star
“Jamie Woodcock is perhaps one of England's most interesting
researchers right now . . . Marx that the Arcade should . . . be
read by anyone who ever controlled a bunch of pixels over a
screen.” –Flammen
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