Marx at the Arcade

This pathbreaking book offers a radical analysis of how people play, produce, and profit from video games, and the major role the industry plays in contemporary capitalism. Available from Haymarket Books.

You can read an extract of the book here.

In Marx at the Arcade, acclaimed researcher Jamie Woodcock delves into the hidden abode of the gaming industry. In an account that will appeal to hardcore gamers, digital skeptics, and the joystick-curious, Woodcock unravels the vast networks of artists, software developers, and factory and logistics workers whose seen and unseen labor flows into the products we consume on a gargantuan scale. Along the way, he analyzes the increasingly important role the gaming industry plays in contemporary capitalism and the broader transformations of work and the economy that it embodies.

Endorsements

'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, co-author of Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games

'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

Translations

The book is also available translated into Portuguese as Marx no Fliperama: videogames e luta de classes, published by Autonomia Literaria

• Translated into Greek as ο μαρξ στο ουφαδικο, (2022) with Topos.

• The concluding chapter is available translated into Spanish in the Peruvian journal Revista Ojo Zurdo as 'Conclusión: La importancia de los videojuegos'

• An excerpt on "political" games was published in Notes from Below

Reviews

• Ranged Touch, Games Studies Study Buddies

• Full marks, by Oliver Arditi

• Spark, by Kevin Judge

• Global Labour Journal, by Benjamin Herr

• Capital & Class, by Connor Harney

• San Francisco Review of Books, by David Wineberg

• Niklas Pivic

• Games industry News, by Colin Flanigan

• Morning Star, by Ben Cowles

• Manchester Game Studies Network, by Ashley Darrow

• The Outline, by Sam Adler-Bell

• Flamman, by Johan Jacobsson Franzén

• Jacobin, by Laura Bartkowiak and Brian J. Sullivan, with Portuguese translation

• Catarsi, by Brian J. Sullivan and Laura Bartkowiak - in Catalan

• Staynerd, by Luca Parri - in Italian

• Sociology of Power by Alesya S. Serada - in Russian

• Ground Control Magazine I wanna be literated no 217

• Radio Student, by Matej Trontelj - in Slovenian

• Paidia, by Eugen Pfister - in German

• Ephemera, by Dilara Baysal

• Labour/Le Travail, by Robert MacDougall

• Review of Radical Political Economics, by Kallum Pembro

• Working Title Bookshop, by Matt Seidel

• Journal of Play, by Emil Lundedal Hammar

• Socialist Alternative, by George Martin Fell Brown

• A Terra é Redonda, by André Campos Rocha

• Karl am Controller, by Eugene Pfister

Interviews

• Dissent Magazine, Belabored Podcast 173: Wages for Warcraft, by Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen

• The Antifada, Ep 47: The Party Question w/ Famous Leftists (+ virgil texas)

• Death // Sentence

• Unwinnable, by Adam Boffa

• Labour Days with Marijam Didžgalvytė, by Daniel Randall

• All the Rage, by Jon Boud

Accompanying pieces

• The violence, gambling techniques and worker exploitation behind the world’s favourite video games, The Independent

In Other Media

• Tipsy Leftist Video Game Discussion, an ASMR reading of Marx at the Arcade by Woozy ASMR

Recorded talks