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Publication Metadata only Glamor above, precarity below: immaterial labor in the video game industry(Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francis Ltd, 2015) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279This article foregrounds the concept of immaterial labor to theorize the tension between the precarity of below the line workers and the glamor of above the line workers in the video game industry. I argue that even the most seemingly secure sections of the gaming workforce have a tendency to drift toward the economic precarity most acutely felt across below the line workers. In other words, we, as researchers, may need to question the presumed hard break between the above and below the line work experiences of employees in the game industry in light of the increase in processes of deskilling, outsourcing, and financialization. Moreover, I assert that workers, like game testers, are attracted to below the line positions as through-ports to the glamorous core sections of game labor: design, art, and programming. As such, they are interpellated to the ideology of creativity and practices of hope labor. The theoretical insights developed in the article draw on 2.5-year ethnographic work in a medium-sized game studio in the US, during which above and below the line digital laborers, and their spouses, were interviewed alongside participatory observation.Publication Metadata only The cruel optimism of casual games: neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and the valorization of play(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2019) Mejia, Robert; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Bulut, Ergin; Faculty Member; Department of Media and Visual Arts; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279Casual games disrupted the games industry, but not in ways commonly believed. What if we left behind the hardcore vs. casual games dichotomy to reveal that casual gameplay and casual game development have extended the neoliberal and neocolonial logic of the industry? Casual games, in terms of design and industry practices, remind us that there is nothing inherently liberating about play. Rather, the design and development practices of casual games should be understood as an extension and acceleration of neoliberal and neocolonial logics. Casual gameplay and casual game development pull us within processes of cruel optimism. These deeply political economic processes endanger free play and creativity and therefore are obstacles to the flourishing of gamers and game developers as free subjects. In this neoliberal and neocolonial game market, cruel optimism is enticing because casual gameplay and game development emerge as powerful actors and practices in a context where the state has globally failed in the distribution of hope.