Abstract:

As digital platforms become deeply embedded in daily life, digital games are evolving from leisure and entertainment into a new form of labor, an inevitable result of the development of platform capitalism. Examined through the lens of Marxist political economy, gaming behavior under specific conditions has already acquired the fundamental characteristics of labor: players’online duration and operations are programmed by systems and transformed into“digital labor time”available for platform extraction; the resulting behavioral data, creative content, and social relations become unpaid raw materials for capital valorization. Analysis shows that from“gold farming”to data production, a substantial volume of gaming activities essentially participate in value creation. However, the vast majority of the resulting surplus value is captured by platforms

through technological monopolies and rule design, forming a concealed exploitation of“play as labor.” Therefore, it is imperative to recognize the power asymmetry behind the laborization of games and explore possible paths to counter platform monopolies and strive for digital rights.

Key words: platform capitalism, ideological domestication, surplus value, digital games, laborization