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- Title
Top Shelf Drinks, Bottom Line Play: Examining Representations of Class in Bartending and Mixology Games.
- Authors
DeJong, Scott; Blamey, Courtney
- Abstract
There is an emerging body of games that simulate the labor of drink making and serving at the forefront of play through the role of a bartender or artisanal mixologist. Both are working class but the creative variance between them challenges how economic precarity is understood. The authors ask how this translates to video games when these positions are foregrounded. How do play, poverty, and precarity interconnect in drink making and serving games? Through the qualitative analysis of four games that put the player in the position of bartender or mixologist, this paper shows how creative labor and precarity are illuminated or obfuscated through mechanics and narrative. In doing so, it argues how games, as one form of media, obscure or make visible labor and precarity to players and simultaneously reinforce the romanticization of often exploited creative labor. These findings prompt further questions and research directions on representations of working-class labor.
- Subjects
BARTENDING; VIDEO games; WORKING class; RESEARCH questions; PRECARITY; COCKTAILS
- Publication
Games & Culture, 2023, Vol 18, Issue 5, p622
- ISSN
1555-4120
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/15554120221119962