Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gamer Resistance To Marketization Of Play, Jacob C. Almaguer

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Video games provide an important context to understand the role of markets in a virtual space. Particularly, consumerism has appeared to have transferred from actual reality in the virtual reality in video games. For instance, growth in use of microtransactions by companies enable consumers to exchange real currency for in-game currency. Thus, the distinction between reality and fiction appears to be blurring. This may be problematic given the hegemony of AAA video game developers (Triple-A games are those with very high development and promotion budgets), commonality of neoliberal appeals in video games, and the potential influence that video games can …