Immersion Vs. Resistance: Game Logics Of The Digital Labor ——A Netnographic Study Of The Mobile Game Mo'er Abbey

Rounds of technological development promote a new era of digital capitalism,leading to the birth of digital labor.Online game stands for a typical commodity of digital capitalism,of which the using behaviors enrich the practice of digital labor.In order to interpret the transformation from "player" to "playbour" in the game field,this netnographic study takes the mobile game Mo`er Abbey as a typical text.Meanwhile,in-depth interviews and participatory observations are used throughout the study,trying to describe the implicit logic hidden in the game from the perspective of political economy communication.Firstly,based on the realistic conditions and theoretical context of digital labor,the pre-programming operations and meta-story design are mainly focused on to investigate how the game narrative logic works.Then the study shows the immersive experience and participatory satisfaction of game players,highlighting their discipline and recognition of voluntary labor in game.Furthermore,the study reveals the players' consciousness awakening and continuous resistance to the unfair labor in game via their subjective performances.Finally,the hegemony of immaterial labor as well as the alienation of game labor is further come up.Meanwhile,how the new technology and the institutional system promote the achievement of freedom and equality in communication is still under discussion.It is found that the pre-programmed rules and the meta-story setup provide the operability and ideological legitimacy for players.Their virtual experience makes up for the deficiency in real life temporarily,and promotes both emotional satisfaction and material contentment in the context of "de-alienation",thus improving the image of virtual selfhood.In this way,the game logic is highly accepted,which is then reinforced by the repeated game labor.Disciplines from the game capital are eventually found.The study goes on to show that even when the controls and settings are completely different,games are always secretly implanted with similar logic cores by their developers.Labor hegemony is usually promoted by the ego constructing in game,which covers the exploitation to game players.Player blindly follows the preset logic by the influence of the game hegemony,and become commoditized due to the heavy work in game,while their leisure and creation are gradually eliminated.Moreover,overworking not only brings both unbearable physical burden and mental pressure to players,but also makes their real life out of normal orders,which triggers the consciousness awakening and the inquiry to the meaning of games.Therefore,players are rebelling against the game logic,by means of transferring their work to the others,and building up the consensus of the digital labor.In addition,digital technologies represented by block chain provide a new perspective and idea to protect rights of the digital labors.Although the resistance of digital players as well as the innovative digital technology has alleviated the alienation to a certain extent,a proper fundamental solution cannot be raised to the plight of digital workers.What`s more,digital labor security system lags behind.The identification of digital labor relationship becomes an important problem to be solved urgently in the process accelerating the construction of rights and interests protecting system.Digital labor has been inevitably brought into the process of social communication.Only by enhancing user`s critical awareness of media and enhancing their media literacy can we make the freedom and liberation of communication come true.