Kreativitet och ekonomi: värden och dilemman i dataspelsbranschen

Abstract

The article investigates how game developers experience work and working conditions through the ideals and norms of ‘creative work’. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with employees in the digital games industry in Sweden. Through the theoretical notion of ‘relational work’, the analysis focuses on accounts of tensions and boundary work between creativity and commerce, and how work is valuated in the nexus between an economic and moral value sphere. The article discusses how the notion of creative work and the informal social relationships in the industry may sustain a tendency to individualize responsibility for working conditions.