From Crunch to Grind: Adopting Servitization in Project-Based Creative Work

Abstract

The digital game industry has embraced servitization – a strategic orientation toward customer centricity in production-based firms – to deeply monetize digital games. Though some note the resource-intensive nature of delivering services and suggest inherent risks in its adoption, extant literature is uncritical. This article draws on labour process theory to critique the impact of servitization on workers at the point of production. We conducted in-depth interviews at a large North American game development studio. The results show the human cost of servitization, generally overshadowed by financial considerations. Specifically, we theorize that servitization increases the indeterminacy of labour and this must be compensated for if servitization is to realize its cost-benefit potential. The result is an intensification of labour through additional control imperatives which make workers accountable to consumers through deterministic success metrics, impact the creative process and direct creative outputs in real time.