A review by samdalefox
Everything to Play For: An Insider's Guide to How Video Games are Changing Our World by Marijam Did

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I suspect that for gamers this book will be uninformative and perhaps even boring. For non-gamers or very casual gamers (like myself) I think this book is excellent and a terrific entry-level introduction into the world. 

The book is organised into logically progressing sections which I've given a brief overview of the topics covered below; no spoilers. 

  • Introduction
  • Tutorial - What videogames are, their importance, and how they fit into our culture
  • Level I - History of development, narratology, ludology, political & civic impact, persuasive games
  • Level II - Immeterial labour, free speech, the importance of mods, social capital, recuperation,  software modes of production, relational aesthetics, comparison with fine art industry examples
  • Level III - Further examples of art and politics being used for material political goals, self criticism/evaluation in the gaming industry, social theory, intellectual property
  • Level IV - unions, hardware modes of production, game development, publication, finance and income models, global south workers' labour conditions, climate change & e-waste pollution, instability of the world wide web, and AI (briefly)
  • Conclusion 

Pros - Did successfully makes the case for the cultural and political importance of videogames as a means of information dissemination/sharing, persuasion/propaganda platform, skill forming, escapism, and community building. She also successfully highlgihts the uniqueness of videogames compared to other art forms and evaluates them critically e.g., "Videogames occupy an odd space; they are the most influential and profitable entertainment strand there is, but at the same time they are exempt from any serious cultural criticism". The biggest strength of the book in my opinion is the breadth, Did covers a lot of ground concisely.

Cons - The double edged sword of covering a lot of ground is that the book lacked deep dives into particular case studies.There were also times where the author contradicted herself, particularly in reference the potential of games to serve as a space for organising. Did argues that games are an underutilsied space for fostering solidarty and left wing movements, as already being done successfully by the right wing, but then says things like 'games are mirrors' and it's hard to convert people through the game itself since "The (cultural) interests advanced are usually ones reflecting what already exists; real political victories are harder to achieve and involve real risk" unless she argues, the games are surprisingly placed or advanced through the gaming commnuities. 

The biggest weakness of the book is the lack of focus and deep exploration of the hardware means of production, and alternative systems to replace the current exploitative one. Did literally asks the right questions, then fails to provide any semblence of answers: 
"What would a mass version of such manufacturing ethics look like? How could we have computer operating systems and other software that would somehow not perpetuate capitalist practices? These are momentous questions without easy answers; the aim must be to shift gaming and many other digital practices away from their participation in the whirlpool of harm."

..."The scale of the problem only creates a wealth of openings for involvement. If, in the making of a pencil, there exist numerous parts of production and hence numerous points for sabotage, in games and their cursed hardware, there are that many more! The avenues for impact, revision and subversion are ample, and many are revelling in them."

At the start of the book Did says "I long for a day when political games don’t stop at merely critiquing the status quo but provide tools for destabilising it." In this goal Did failed. Her book (a tool itself) did not provide deep enough anlaysis or alternative suggestions to begin destabilising the status quo. And yes books can do this, Walter Rodney's How 'Europe Underdeveloped Africa' is a good example. Did CONSTANTLY refers to the importance of focussing on the hardware mode of production: "The crucial difference must be at the level of the mode of production, as always." and then gave us half a chapter of nothing.


Overall

If you're new to the gaming industry this is an excellent book to read as it covers a lot of ground. In the introduction Did states that "...this book will crystallise a list of aspects to pay attention to when evaluating and scrutinising a videogame for its social efficacy", to that end I think she succeeded. There are also plenty of examples given and good quality references to substantiate her claims. I knocked this down to 4/5 stars for two reasons. First, the depth of writing was often lacking. It would have been nice to see a couple of case studies where Did more deeply explored one area. Second, the final chapter was disappointing. This is my most common critique of left-wing literature. We so often make grand statements about how the world NEEDS to change but then say shyly but we don't really know how to do it or what it will look like. Did brought up a few very solid examples of work ongoing right now (global unionisation, Namibia banning exports of raw materials, the USA introducing legislation regarding hardware manufacture that will introduce competition to the global south...) yet these were not explored and Did provided no unique ideas of her own. Did clearly has a lot of passion and expertise in the gaming field, what we desperately need is leadership in imagination. Please try to imagine alternatives and sketch them out for us. After being told for so long that 'There Is No Alternative', it would be powerful for readers to actually picture an imagined, thought out alternative as a credible alternative. This is a distinctly new phenomonon, left-wing writers from last century frequently tried to describe utopias. Let's bring that back! 


Quotes

"In order to imagine a new kind of politics in videogames and in the way they are marketed, perceived and critiqued, we must first reflect on the modes of production of gaming. Videogames are the future of art, entertainment, sports, and community organising, no matter how reluctant some people are to accept it. They are shaping the world around us culturally, economically, linguistically, aesthetically and politically. Our mission, then, is not to opt out, ignoring this gargantuan industry and its effects on the people we love and the people we fear, but to start taking the industry very seriously. Only by injecting fresh, progressive energy into the gaming world can we truly enjoy this invigorating, sensually unmatched medium and its liberatory attributes."

"For anyone who wishes to be called progressive, politics must maintain an open-ended and experimental edge, where attempts are made at reimagining the world beyond the current circumstance. Games are uniquely placed to offer this, by requiring interaction and participation and being themselves ‘places’ where new rules can play out"
  
"Theodor Adorno would remind us here that much of entertainment is a ritual in which the subjugated celebrate their subjection."

"Workers with discretionary leisure income pay to be entertained, to be compensated for the boredom of their working lives. Collectively hallucinating and preoccupied with survival instead of overthrowing the structures that engender our suffering, we are stuck in pockets of culture as the only space we have any chance of controlling."

"Cultural theorist Walter Benjamin warned that it is not enough to pass something off as having ‘revolutionary content’ while still utilising contemporary relations to production."

"The late academic Mark Fisher wrote extensively about the narrowing of culture and, by extension, pop culture, and his findings can most certainly be applied to videogames. Under a consolidation of political systems (i.e., semi-democratic state market economies), the boundaries for citizen expression are predefined, reducing the plurality of cultural expression as well."

"Crudely speaking, this is art for the sake of its own spectacle and the artist’s material gain, rather than for a change of heart."

[In reference to unions]... "They are often seen by game workers as a service rather than a space for solidarity or for building a movement."

"And while people from ever more diverse demographics are developing more varied games, this centralisation is still likely to shrink the choice of games overall. Bigger and bigger companies are busy working on a smaller catalogue of old intellectual property assets, or even on a single, financially evergreen game. At the same time, most app stores are steadily removing old games from their digital shelves. Other IP never sees the light of day – projects are discontinued mid-production, and the IP is bought so that another company cannot profit from it. This echoes the wastefulness currently rampant in the film industry, where big-budget projects are scrapped before release."

"Industry insiders must agitate for change, but that we also need more direct action, protests and substantial grassroots pressure to turn things around."

"Culture now abandons aspirations to innovation and puts itself in the corner of conformism and profitability."

"This arena is bursting with politics – from the code written, to the theme portrayed, to the human cost of the objects on which games are played. Nothing short of an international worker-led takeover of this industry will suffice to save it, and the planet, from its own greedy, destructive tendencies. Resistance will be fierce – from a brutal last squeeze of the existing extractive practices, to a debasement of the workforce, to attempts to whitewash status-quo gaming and depoliticise union-busting. For the people embedded in the industry, this change must take place to salvage what is to be enjoyed here, not to take it away.

And what can players do to help the people in the industry win the battle for the soul of gaming? Some solutions for more ethical consumption, of course, come to mind – check the source of a game’s materials, the conditions in its factories and the sustainability of its components. Upon purchasing a videogame, consider seeking out information about its makers and their record of treatment of the game’s devs"

"Raymond Williams, ‘to be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing'."

"The ethical scale will not tilt towards equity if we do not employ force."