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Spatialisation and Mobile Labour in the digital games industry
Last modified: 2011-02-26
Abstract
Contemporary social theorists have argued that mobile firms are increasingly disembedded from local structures in what David Harvey (1989) would call time space compression or Manuel Castells (1996) a ‘space of flows’. More recently Mosco, V (2009) has called for an evaluation of ‘spatialisation’ processes in communication. This paper explores the spatialisation of professional production in the digital games industry and the implications these trends raise for cultural policy.
The digital games industry can be conceptualised as a cultural industry. This paper analyses the structure and demographics of the digital games industry in Ireland based on a survey of companies. The survey found that there has been a significant growth in overall employment levels in the Irish games industry over the past decade and that this growth has been created in the main by multinational game companies. However, most of the employment growth was not in content development, but in occupations associated with near to market service elements, particularly online community support, and in middleware. A crucial element of this growth had been the availability of mobile, multi-lingual, young, male labour.
This paper explores the spatial and political economic complexities of how the flows of online community support become embedded in a particular location. The paper argues that to understand spatialisation processes in the digital games industry in Ireland we need to go beyond firms, cities and states to examine the interplay between the global structure of the games industry, transnational associational networks, the regional politics of labour flows and local contingencies.
The digital games industry can be conceptualised as a cultural industry. This paper analyses the structure and demographics of the digital games industry in Ireland based on a survey of companies. The survey found that there has been a significant growth in overall employment levels in the Irish games industry over the past decade and that this growth has been created in the main by multinational game companies. However, most of the employment growth was not in content development, but in occupations associated with near to market service elements, particularly online community support, and in middleware. A crucial element of this growth had been the availability of mobile, multi-lingual, young, male labour.
This paper explores the spatial and political economic complexities of how the flows of online community support become embedded in a particular location. The paper argues that to understand spatialisation processes in the digital games industry in Ireland we need to go beyond firms, cities and states to examine the interplay between the global structure of the games industry, transnational associational networks, the regional politics of labour flows and local contingencies.