The Cultural Field of Video Game Production in Australia

Beyond the blockbuster studios and multinational publishers of North America, Western Europe, and Japan, videogame production happens in a range of contexts, at a variety of scales, and for a number of reasons. While the videogame industry as a sector of the economy accounts for the flow of capital between corporate actors and global markets, as a concept it is insufficient to account for the spectrum of cultural activities and identities that constitute videogame production. In this article, I instead follow Bourdieu to consider videogame production as a cultural field. The videogame field is locally situated and constituted by a contested range of activities and identities implicated in interrelated economic, cultural, and social forces. Drawing from empirical research with videogame makers in Australia, this article's conceptualization of the videogame field provides ways to better account for the plurality of ways videogames makers navigate economic stability and creative autonomy.

Automated summary

Video game production occurs in various contexts, scales, and reasons beyond the big studios and publishers in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. The concept of the video game field, as a cultural space locally situated and influenced by economic, cultural, and social forces, offers a way to understand how game makers navigate economic stability and creative autonomy.