Desirable work: Creative autonomy and the everyday turn in game production

Abstract

Based on an ethnography of gamemaking in the Toronto game development scene, I introduce the concept of the everyday gamemaker to reveal how the everyday turn of game production work has transformed the identities of gameworkers. Whereas, previous research has documented the extensive self-exploitation and willingness of creative workers to accept difficult and precarious working conditions, I uncover how everyday gamemakers “make-do” with these modes of cultural production by their desires to going it alone as independent gamemakers, establish second careers through employment and craft work, and find professional development opportunities to make games. I argue these desires shape the nuanced work and leisure identities of everyday gamemakers and evoke their widespread struggle to achieve creative autonomy in the circuits of game production.