ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on the meaning and conditions of creative work in the digital games industry in Sweden. The study, which is based primarily on in-depth interviews with game developers, demonstrates the complexities and tensions involved in a working environment characterised by the ethos of passion. It is shown how game developers (re)draw boundaries between moral, emotional, and economic value spheres—highlighting a tension between art and commerce. Through the theoretical notion of “relational work” in economic sociology, the analysis details how the boundaries being drawn between value spheres are embedded in a simultaneous ordering of social relationships. The notion of “passionate work” blurs the distinctions between work and life when it comes to work tasks, as well as personal relationships, sustaining loyalty, and friendship. Furthermore, the accounts from the game developers show how loyalty to and passion for the work seem to also embrace a responsibility for the working conditions. The chapter draws to a close with a discussion on how the relational work performed in the digital games industry sustains the tension between pleasure and precarity in creative work, and how it obscures the individualisation of responsibility for working conditions.
