ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the relationship between student productive labor, or the creation of media content like podcasts or graphic designs, and the institutionalization of collegiate esports. Through 19 semi-structured interviews with students and professionals involved in different areas around collegiate esports, we found that students’ productive labor was a key force in the institutionalization of collegiate esports that generated value for university institutions, the collegiate esports program, and themselves. Student journalists, shoutcasters, and graphic designers perform immaterial labor (Lazzarato, M., 1996 Immaterial labour. Radical thought in Italy: A potential politics, 133–47) that combines technical expertise and familiarity with esports cultural norms to produce content for their university programs. Students reported their excitement to pursue careers throughout the esports industry while acknowledging the stiff competition and precarious nature of employment, resonating with Bulut’s (2020, A precarious game: The illusion of dream jobs in the video game industry) discussion of ludopolitics to examine who can play games versus who can work in the game industry. The article thus addresses the benefits, and risks, inherent in colleges’ reliance on student labor to structure and promote their nascent esports programs.

摘要

本文分析了学生生产性劳动或播客或平面设计等媒体内容的创建与大学电子竞技的制度化之间的关系。通过对涉及大学电竞不同领域的学生和专业人士的 19 次半结构化访谈，我们发现学生的生产性劳动是大学电子竞技制度化的关键力量，它为大学机构、大学电子竞技项目和他们自己创造了价值。学生记者、播音员和平面设计师从事非物质劳动（Lazzarato, M., 1996 非物质劳动。意大利的激进思想：一种潜在的政治, 133–47) 结合了技术专长和对电子竞技文化规范的熟悉，为他们的大学课程制作内容。学生们报告了他们在整个电子竞技行业追求职业的兴奋，同时承认激烈的竞争和就业的不稳定性质，这与 Bulut（2020 年，一个不稳定的游戏：视频游戏行业梦想工作的幻觉）关于游戏政治的讨论产生了共鸣，以检验谁能玩游戏与谁可以在游戏行业工作。因此，本文讨论了大学依赖学生劳动力来构建和推广其新生的电子竞技项目所固有的好处和风险。