Digital Work, Disposable Work? When Opportunities to Explore Threaten the Meaning of the Activity

This chapter points out the ambivalence of video game workers towards their digital, creative and collective work. It exposes the mode of division of this complex digital work, and shows the possibilities of exploration and management of its contingencies offered to the employees by the chronic indeterminacy of the manufactured product. While the primacy of contingencies may be associated with moments of exploration and creative projection, the prevalence of iterative development processes is also likely to threaten the very possibility of engaging in the activity. The activity of video game assemblers will offer us the typical case of a system of activity where the digital nature of the product increases the possibilities of individual and collective exploration tenfold, while subjecting the work experience to a constant regime of contingencies. The chapter shows that its digital nature, by allowing multiple iterations, also feeds the fear of disposable work and may weaken their commitment to the work.