Gan-er in Production: Subjectivity and Labor Control in Chinese Game Industry

• In Event: Labor and Labor Movements Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 10: Tech Labor, Platform Capitalism, and Algorithmic Labor Control 2

Abstract

As China’s creative industry has expanded rapidly over the past three decades, labor practices within it have also undergone significant change. This study examines creative labor in the game industry, analyzing how the interplay between labor subjectivity and capital shapes game production in China. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 42 semi-structured interviews, the study shows that game companies recruit a group of developers characterized by a distinctive subjectivity—referred to as gan-er developers—primarily through game development competitions. Rooted in gaming culture and long-term gaming practices, this form of subjectivity reflects developers’ passion-driven intensive labor, accumulated game-related knowledge, and strong identification as gamers. Upon entering firms, however, developers encounter a modularized and KPI-driven production regime shaped by the dominance of Games as a Service (GaaS). Under scale-up production, subjectivity is not incorporated as an integrated whole but selectively mobilized in fragmented form. Firms mobilize developers’ endurance and self-discipline to sustain high-intensity labor, while constraining creative autonomy and gamer identity, both of which introduce uncertainty into standardized production. By tracing this process, the study advances a multidimensional understanding of subjectivity and reveals the mechanisms and consequences of its fragmented mobilization in China’s game industry.

Authors

• zhutao pan, Zhejiang University

• Tongyu Wu, Zhejiang University