El Presidente tries you: the mechanisms of gamers’ productivity capitalization in “Tropico”, “Torchlight” and “Diablo” video game series
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18778/2391-8551.02.01Keywords:
productivity, ideology, monetization, action-RPG, tycoonAbstract
In popular economic discourse, productivity is the ratio of the value of manufactured goods to the initial input. In games, the input can be placed on the players’ side: players invest their time, financial resources, and cultural capital in order to achieve certain benefits, which are “produced “ in the course of the game. The status of this benefit is dependent on the context, but developers make such players’ productivity a key strategy used in promoting and maintaining a game and its fan base. The paper analyses three games: "Tropico III", "Diablo III" and "Torchlight II", in the context of ideological underpinnings of game mechanics that support the notions of using fan’s free labour, taking advantage of their non-game activities via the auction house and forcing them to internalize neo-colonial stance, respectively.
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