When several villages are united in a single complete community large

enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the polis comes into

existence, originating in life itself [ginomene¯ men tou ze¯ n heneken]
and existing essentially for the sake of the good life [ousa de tou eu
ze¯ n] (Aristotle, 1988; Pg. 29-31)

Video games have existed as a form of play for years, allowing players to play in a world

that can act as a great palette for play and imagination. With all the potential that video games

hold, there is also a deep and sobering reminder of the harsh reality in which the workers who

develop our hardware and software operate, and (in turn) how our own world operates. We’re

placed in a situation where we, as consumers, are placing the basic and fundamental human

rights of an international work force in a suspended state of being that puts the livelihood of

these workers in a state of jeopardy, where their health and fundamental rights are at stake. This

is all in an effort to feed a demand that we place on the market as consumers. This state of being

is so aptly described by Giogoro Agamben as the ‘State of Exception’; a state of political

willpower where the labour laws that should work and operate to keep citizens safe are being

suspended, and in many ways entirely dismissed, all to allow a more aggressive and profitable

market to thrive. This methodology ultimately raises the status-quo of select individuals while

seemingly lowering that of others. While this method was seemingly created with short-term

intentions in its initial development, it has eventually become a prolonged state of being in many

cases amongst a modern age, often times even misconstruing the initial intention of recovering

from a crisis or emergency. Resisting that prolonged state is perhaps an unintentional (but rather

substantial) form of resistance and goal for those who decided to take their lives all in an effort to

escape a deprival of their basic human rights.

As was witnessed around the world in 2010, workers for the technology company Foxconn

began attempting to take their own lives in a horrific and often times, shocking fashion. With an

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approximate eighteen attempts, and fourteen confirmed deaths; the conditions that pushed these

workers to consider escaping the situation that they were placed under, this state of exception, is

an area that has formed an area of intense curiosity and thus requires more research and insight

to better understand just who put these workers in this position, and how they could possibly

implement such a system that places so many lives at risk. While labour laws exist in China, the

evidence that is the dead bodies of Foxconn employees, speaks to the lack of an application for

these laws, and speaks to the larger effects of globalization on outsourced labour as a whole.

Being an avid video game player and long time fan of the industry, this issue is a hard one

to understand as a consumer, let alone accept as a reality; as it means to evaluate the habits that

are so steadily enforced by the industry and its players as a recognised norm. The argument

could be made that as consumers, we are partially to blame for the cycle of production that has

lead to this incident and many others, which I will take the liberty to call a ‘crisis’. In many

ways, the notion of consumerism is the one that I’d argue is the driving force behind the state of

exception. Everytime I want to buy a new console, or buy the latest iPhone – I’m buying that at

the cost to someone’s time and health. It remains to be seen, that as much as we’re ingrained into

accepting this way of being, we also need to challenge it and find a way to apphropriate this

model with a new way that succeeds in recognising workers as human beings, and not as a part

in a machine. In this paper there exists an (unbiased) theoretical framework based on a love and

passion for the industry; that’ll begin to explain how we, as consumers, can hopefully begin to

explain the atrocities that are not only happening at the Foxconn plant, but around the world –

and create a viable solution. There lies the possibility that in the future, there could be a stronger

resistance to the norms that are so detached from basic human rights and consistently reinforced

as the norm; as a result this paper has to explain the current political climate, all the while

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examining the possibilities for future crises and the hope of averting them in an industry reliant

on results and on meeting release dates.

Drawing upon the work of Agamben, along with other integral points of research – this

paper will thoroughly explain just how production and consumerism has lead to a

de-democratization of the work force in the line of video game software and hardware

production, and attempt to explain just exactly how politics both include and exclude the notion

of bare life in its operations.

When the suicidal efforts began to enter public conscious, many were quick to begin

wondering just how such a substantial set of atrocities could occur. This wasn’t one or two

suicides; this was a large number of employees with a shared experience taking their own lives.

The answer to that lies in the deeply rooted theory of the state of exception. What began as a

provisional measure has, as Agamben puts it, become the dominant paradigm of government in

contemporary politics (2005; Pg.4). The state of exception began as a method for governments to

increase their power structures internally in a time of a crisis. By doing so, threats to citizenship

and the rights of individuals are posed when the law is suspended by the sovereign.

In the case of Foxconn, many have died trying to escape the conditions that they are placed

under on a daily basis, I argue that these conditions need not exist, the workers that make our

consoles and our games need not be at risk.

What the factory lines at Foxconn are slaving over does not have an overt purpose other

than to feed that cycle of consumerism and to push the hegemonic control of power back into the

hands of the elite. The deaths of many of the workers at the Foxconn plant represent a resistance,

a resistance that holds the purpose of re-evaluating the status quo, and bringing forth the

conversation about the problems these workers face under the burden of oppression.

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 The people who are working for Foxconn aren’t working to save lives, or to help in the

recovery from a large scale disaster or crisis. This is not a disaster that requires labour laws be

dropped to constitute a recovery – this is a disaster of a different kind that affects the deeply

embedded roots of human rights, one where as consumers we’re requiring a speedy development

of our products so that they can be placed into our hands for the holidays. This conspicuous

consumption is the main root of the problem, as such, it works as a mode of being where we

work off of “the superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and

supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of

costliness masquerading under the name of beauty” (Veblen, 1899; Pg.71) The companies

involved seek to fuel that conspicuous consumption at the most cost effective method possible.

The truth is simply that labour laws exist in China, and are meant to protect the people who

act as a labourer in these factories; and stand to protect the workers from the subsequent

violations that companies like Foxconn seemingly gloss over when they disregard or skim over

these laws (or sometimes abandoning them all together) in an effort to further their agenda and

their hegemonic position of power. Whether these workers sit in a small development studio in

Mumbai working on code from a U.K. programmer or sitting in a Chinese factory assembling

parts for an Xbox; these workers are not so much workers as they are extensions of a larger

machine for production. Laws such as Article 32 of the Chinese labour law are meant to act as a

safeguard towards protecting the Chinese work force. As article 32 states,

The Labourers can notify, at any time, their employer of their decision to revoke labour contracts if

they are forced to work by the employer through means of violence, threat or deprival of personal

freedom in violation of law (Wagner, 2010).

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 The problem is then contextualized in a form that recognises the possibility that as

Foxconn takes on more contracts from foreign (and domestic) partners, and has an increasingly

growing level of profits from the different companies that contract out to Foxconn; the success of

these contracts then produce a profit that is then fed into the economy. An economy that stands

to further advance the position of those companies as major players in the economic game of the

country – in this case, China; I argue that these companies are playing off of a historical tension

between politics and the people; one where politics stands in direct contest to those that the

intended public policy is meant to serve. Hannah Arendt, an influence on both Agamben, and the

state of exception theory, explains that “political organization is not only different from but

stands in direct opposition to that natural association whose centre is the home (oikia) and the

family.” (1958, Pg. 24). As video games often times depict a battle between the forces of good

and evil, there’s a similar situation at play in this aforementioned tension, where politics is at a

position of oppression and the workforce at Foxconn, or the “family” in this case, is a powerful

force of resistance. A force that is speaking out against the oppression placed on them, they are

willing to risk their lives in an effort to broadcast a message, a cry for help and assistance. While

many are putting their lives at risk, it comes with the reward that we begin a dialogue about the

current situation. In that sense, there needs to be a larger role for others in promoting awareness

on these issues. This is not an incident, this is a powerful form of erasing the worth of a human

being. In that sense, there needs to be a clear and conscious understanding of just how a

community can be built that succeeds in creating an awareness towards the crisis at Foxconn and

other areas of production around the world. When news of the Foxconn suicides broke, there

were a few independent gaming media outlets that picked the news up, and yet there hasn’t been

much since to support further investigation or even a challenge towards the Foxconn executives

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and their partners. As Aristotle puts it in the opening quote to this paper, we’re working towards

a singular, self-sufficient community; one where we’re all attempting to, “[exist] essentially for

the sake of the good life” (Aristotle, 1988; Pg. 31) Which is seemingly, the next step in the

process of re-establishing rights into the hands of the workers at Foxconn and at other companies

around the world.

The goals of a company such as Foxconn are a simple one at that: to make a profit, and to

levy a comparative advantage over its competitors. As a hardware manufacturer, Foxconn has

taken contracts from many video game companies such as Nintendo, Apple, and Sony; and in its

subsequent success, has been reflecting the appropriated success of the associated companies it’s

been contracted out to work for. In that sense, it helps to understand the theory established by

Michel Foucault who states that to understand biopolitics, you need to understand liberalism and

neo-liberalism as an established and coinciding by-product (2004; Pg. 24). Coincidentally,

neo-liberalism and globalization are very much a cyclical cause and effect. As philosopher Mark

Lila states, “The forces of globalized nation that have given us a 'neoliberalism' that people

everywhere associated with unregulated markets, labor exploitation, environmental degradation,

and official corruption” (Lilla, 2010; Pg.15). To that extent, the strongest aspect that has

produced this setting is this sense that the application of political power enforces a stronger

regulation of the population, but that is by effect influenced by the markets; as the hegemonic

control for power is exercised over the population that the sovereignty is supposed to protect.

This contradiction seemingly explains how politics and the sovereignty can seemingly include

and exclude the human life from all of its operations. It’s an unfortunate reality wherein those

who are based in government seemingly have a difficult time taking the considerations of human

rights seriously.

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 One of the problems of the Foxconn Suicides is simply an expansion on that relationship.

While government exists to serve the public, it contradicts its own mandate and purpose by

seemingly allowing major corporations like a Foxconn or a Codemasters, to violate labour laws

in an effort to better serve the interests of those corporations. In many ways, it’s as if the

sovereign power of state is simply turning a blind eye. As has been evident in China, their labour

laws are not even being reinforced on a company like Foxconn, who is evidently forcing these

workers to work without protection from the supposed labour laws.

As a definition of politics, or sovereignty, has been constantly defined and redefined over

time in a way that further imposes a theory that blends the public and the political into a complex

relationship that is enveloped by a remarkable tradgedy. Agamben articulates this tragedy further

as being as follows,

The drastic redefininition of the sovereign function implies a different situation of the state of

exception. It no longer appears as the threshold that guarantees the articulation between an inside

and an outside, or between anomie and the juridical context, by virtue of a law that is in force in its

suspension: it is rather, a zone of absolute indeteriminacy between anomie and law, in which the

sphere of creatures and the juridical order are caught up in a single catastrophe (Agamben, 2005;

Pg. 113)

In terms of the Foxconn Suicides, this relationship is well displayed. Companies like

Nintendo and Apple have relied on Foxconn to develop its products, and as a result; it really

communicates a strong reliance on the company and its workers. As consumerism no doubt

played a key role in furthering the state of exception, it is increasingly seen fit that this

development of a global factory is advanced and articulated by the notion that neo-liberalism is

ultimately at the core of globalization, its subsequent players, and the negative impacts that these

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results are having towards the human rights of the international work force. This is articulated by

Nick Dyer-Witheford who describes how:

For unrestricted exchange between nations and regions specializing their production on the basis of

“comparative advantage” made the division of labour its guiding theoretical principle. Today, this

principle, applied with an extremism that might terrify its discoverers, legitimates the neoliberal

trade regimes at the core of globalization. Autonomists name this transnationalization of capital “the

global factory. (Dyer-Witheford, 2002; Pg. 10)

This complex relationship between politics, the market, and people who live in this

definition of bare life are all a part of a stronger sense of understanding when it comes to

breaking down the essentials of just how consumerism could create the conditions that these

workers live and work under.

The simple order of things behind the walls of Foxconn is that laws don’t exist to support

its workers, but rather to oppress them. In fact, it’s a business method supported by the idea that

law in these countries is suspended, and in some cases obliterated in fact (Agamben, 2005; Pg.

57). That is ultimately the problem with incidents such as the Foxconn Suicides or any other case

of a reliance on this ‘global factory’ system. We’re ultimately placing these people in situations

of unnecessary risk, pushing them to the point that places a huge amount of physical, mental and

emotional stress upon the workers.

The deaths of the Foxconn workers is not a truly insignificant event in the grand scheme,

as it not only has raised global awareness on a simple level of the effects of globalization of a

global production model but has also increasingly signified a larger resistance movement led by

these worked; one that articulates a stronger, braver, and far more noble movement towards

reclaiming their sense of self. In the process of working to produce under the pressures of the

global market, these workers become in so many ways a part of that system, losing their identity

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in the process and essentially becoming in many ways, a part in the larger machine. As Agamben

puts it, this process “radically erases any legal status of the individual, thus producing a legally

unnamable and unclassifiable being” (2005; Pg. 3). The question then remains, is the price of

human life, the cost of relegating human life to the category of being ‘inhuman’, worth the

advantage of market dominance? As if to ask, are we simply to accept that as consumers, we rely

on this system to produce the goods and services that we implement into our daily lives, but the

problem is that we’re simply too ingrained into the ways that we are to not partake in a

consumerist lifestyle in a way that could protect the livelihoods of those who produce what we

buy. In that sense, it’s very difficult to escape this predictiment without fully recognising the

difficulties associated with revolutionizing a system that has been a huge part of the industry

ever since Ronald Regan deregulated big business almost three decades ago.

Foxconn has attempted to appease public opinion with a pledge designed to hold the

employees accountable for their attempts at suicide. This ultimately is a poor choice of response,

as it simply reinforces the norm that has existed for years instead of permanently fixing the

problem that placed these workers in the conditions that forced the position of choosing

oppression and life or freedom and death. Sadly, these efforts fall short of being successful, and

play into the traditional mindsets that have influenced the very nature of the global factory as a

whole.

Similarly, while Foxconn is being publically chastised for its human rights abuses, there is

still much in the way of problematic relationships between other companies. Codemasters

similarly doesn’t use Foxconn, but they have been known to outsource their builds of games to

Mumbai, where software developer Zapak Digital Entertainment is situated. Zapak is known as

largely a casual-online game portal; similarly they also have accepted builds from Codemasters

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to assist in finishing and crafting games for the UK developer. While this appears as a great

communal effort to help create games, one where we’re able to imagine a global market where

everything is fair, that’s not the case. With an incident regarding a company like Foxconn, we

should largely suspect that as is the case of one company that’s not following labour laws – but

that’s not exactly true, in fact, there’s also a similar problem of circumventing local labour laws

by sending builds of code overseas as a means to streamline and create a cost-effective method

of developing these titles. The problem is that while the cost of production is minimalized or

even circumvented, another cost is used as a currency for efficiency. That being the rights of

individuals.

The underline problems with this methodology is explained by Zittrain who explains

how,

Online contracting circumvents a range of labour laws and practices, found in most developed

countries that govern worker protections, minimum wage, health and retirement benefits, child labour,

and so forth. Any jurisdiction that imposes restrictions on how crowd sourcing services operate might

find itself bypassed. (Zittrain, 2009; Pg. 1)

As Agamben describes, the issue with this sort of operational system is that it relegates

people to a lower grade of being. As this happens, people are constitutionally unable to reclaim

their status as human beings, they are left as the very minimum of life; bare life. Unfourtanetly,

with continual success, there’s not much that can be done under the conditions that as the system

of globalization gains more popularity, it becomes widely more accepted as the norm. As is the

case with both Foxconn and Codemasters, both companies can understand these methods to be

acceptable as a norm, and will disregard any counter-argument as being outside the norm. As

Agamben puts it, the problem more so is that the state of exception exists as an “illegal” but

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perfectly “juridical and constitutional” measure that is realized in the production of new norms

(Agamben, 2005; Pg. 55). As Agamben beautifully states, there is a sense that we reinvent what

the norms are. As consumers, and decision makers; we’re essentially redefining the norms to

suite our consumerist lifestyle, and to keep the global factory established as a norm, not an

unhealthy exception. We’re justifying the violence conducted against these workers as being

inside norm. Making any possible challenge impossible to juxtapose amongst a larger backdrop

that sees the state of exception as an acceptable measure, and as a larger norm amidst society as a

whole.

Video games have existed for centuries, and continuously develop and grow as being

stronger forms of media for interactive entertainment. The problem has thus become that, while

video games are, at their core, a boisterous, creative; and, in many ways, upbeat culture – gamers

and the industry as a whole are more worried about those quarterly releases rather than the

production of the games that entertain them. This is a troublesome development, and one that

raises some levels of concern. For as much as we want to believe that our video games and

consoles were made under the most in-depth level of ethics, this isn’t true; and while pledges and

promises for a safer future are being made. History has shown that more often than not, there is

never a full solution, but rather a quick fix.

While the theory of the State of Exception began its life as an explanation of the Nazi

regime and the atrocities that the party and its leader, Adolf Hitler carried out. It’s been

continuously heralded as a method for suspending law for the benefit and interests of the public

as a whole, not private corporations or the sovereign as has been illustrated. The problem with

that is that as is evident with these companies, their consumers, and their partners, we’re not

seeing a true to form example of how this is serving the interests of those besides consumers and

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corporations. In fact, holding these companies accountable for their actions is a powerful idea

that has the potential to not only break down the norms that be, but also to assist in the

construction of new norms that can heavily create a state of being that is not necessarily with

exception, but rather cooperation. Given that the current state of being accepts one norm as being

the prevailing one over others. That means that the goal of instituting a democratic method of

creating games lies in a few possibilities that could see a newly established norm, and not a norm

that is simply a re-established illegal order. While not absolutely the best method (nor proven)

considering the past that has continuously established a cyclical nature where the livelihoods of

these workers has been put at risk as the norm, it’s in the hope that the ideas put forward in this

paper hold some degree of optimism for valuing truth and democracy, even in a neo-liberal

market that has allowed the state of exception to become commonplace amongst its practices.

If we’re to believe that the state of exception has any chance of being dislodged as the

norm, then we need to consider similar examples to see just how similar groups of people

escaped such horrendous conditions – and see what lessons can then be applied to video game

production.

Fair Trade has become a buzz word of sorts, indicating much to the coffee or grocery buyer

of the process that the coffee grounds have gone through. In that sense, it serves in a way that

can allow consumers to make a choice of how they buy their coffee; indicating whether the

profits were handed off to a middle-man or to a producer who is a labourer and an economical

force of personal growth. While the idea of fair trade has been widely seen as a process of

producing better trading conditions and producing sustainability in the export market – it’s an

ideal that could be applied to the process of video game console and software production.

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 The theme of all of this once again derives from Aristotle and the quote from the beginning

of this paper. In so many ways, I’ve seen the fallout of the Foxconn Suicides to be nothing more

than a pointed finger towards Foxconnthe company, with no allocated solution. Then again,

perhaps that’s all that’s needed right now. In terms of producing a consistent sense of ‘ethical

consumerism’; there needs to be an understanding that while the ball has started to roll, much of

this new and blossoming trend in consumerism is simply adhering to ideas of what minerals or

chemicals go into a game console. Greenpeace has been producing a list of how ‘green’

electronics truly are (including video games). While environmentalism and global warming are

causes for concern, there’s an apparent lack of attention to the ethics of video game production

from the idea of what is considered ethical, what is considered to be the right way to treat

workers. In fact, while consumerism has began to see itself become a more self aware awareness

of how and where products come from, and what their effects are. We’ve yet to see this blind

spot be addressed.

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be

conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.

(Kant, 1785)

Understanding just how to better create a market where there is an emphasis on inspiring social

change means that our current system needs some changes. Similar to the fair trade model, there

needs to be a system put in place that will allow consumers to be able to readily identify where

their video games and consoles come from, and how ethical it is. As Nick Clarke states,

“individual choice has but a small role to play in explaining consumption practices has been

learned also from a group of sociologists” (Clarke, 2008; Pg. 1872) and while this is true, Clarke

elaborates by explaining that there are many other factors that add to the habits of consumers,

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 consumption practices are habitual and routine at least as often as they are particularly rational and

conscious; for whom consumption practices are usually shaped by material infrastructure (e.g. store

location); and for whom consumption practices are often steered by ‘higher order’ practices (e.g.

supporting a football team, which can lead to moments of consumption such as the purchase of a

match ticket or the purchase of a replica shirt). Connected to this, scholars studying (the possibility of)

sustainable consumption appear increasingly to eschew any broad focus on generalised consumer

choice for a narrower, sharper, more specific focus on ‘selection’ – the relatively trivial choice

between relatively similar options on, say, a supermarket shelf (see Gabriel and Lang 1995). Or they

focus on ‘consumer lockin’ – when consumers find it difficult to change their consumption practices,

given the social relations, domestic routines and material infrastructures in which such practices are

embedded (Clarke, 2008; Pg. 1873).

As Clarke states, a lot of what influences decisions comes down to a simple choice, a

choice that has began to see some effect with fair trade, now the possibility has come to produce

something with a lot more potential for creating positive social change for these foreign work

forces.

A part of that choice is understanding where video games come from. While this hasn’t

been shown in the capacity that would benefit the efforts to relieve those held under oppression

in Foxconn, it’s worth considering just what has made the indie video games movement so

successful as an opposition to the larger models of business that have formed the basis for what

is now considered the state of exception.

With major advances in technology, it’s become a part of the process to deregulate big

business and allow them to send builds of code overseas, or contract a Chinese hardware

developer for a console development. Despite all of this, there has still been an increasing

movement that values a classical way of producing video games. One where personal artistic

expression has become the main draw, and while it may not be timely or overly refined – the

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indie video game movement provides many players with what could be described as, a truly

authentic gaming experience. This isn’t to say that the whole movement is vicariously pursuing a

moral high ground, but when you have games like Braid and Super Columbine Massacre RPG

where these video game developers are using the medium to help develop new ways to tell

stories and provide experiences to gamers proves -- that there are many people out there who

thrive for the creation (and subsequent consumption) of goods that represent a truth; and in so

many ways, the democratic way of artistic representation without the heavy reliance on the

global factory emphasizes a unique resistance to the global factory. While games like Braid

contain themes and ideas that would be considered too risky for a company like Activision or

Electronic Arts; it becomes increasingly more important that these ideas find an avenue for

expression. So in many ways, these games represent something more than just being alternatives

to conventional video games, they represent an alternative to conventional market practices.

Braid is an excellent example, mainly because of its unconventional development. It wasn’t

shipped across seas and it wasn’t hard-pressed to a disc —it was designed by Jonathan Blow and

drawn by David Hellman. This wasn’t a title that had a huge crew and massive deadlines, these

developers took their time and kept everything in-house. While the lure of the global factory

might’ve been alluring to these gentlemen, they ignored the process and stuck to their own. Their

success has been hard to prescribe as being truly as profitable as other major players in the

industry, but like Clarke described, there was more than just a choice here. It was more than just

the simple choice – consumers participated in this ethical consumption because it was made to be

a better alternative. With a low price point and easy to access downloadable service, games like

Braid are becoming true examples of a possible venture towards ethical consumption in video

games; which is an avenue that we’ve yet to see fully realized thus far.

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 Alternatives to the status quo are not new, but with a newer media such as video games –

we’ve yet to see a truly groundbreaking reason for why many of these independent developers

need to exist. Historically speaking however, there’s always going to be that motivation.

Similarly, I would argue that Foxconn is a reason enough to justify independent developers and

their methods. Unlike an EA or Activision which focuses on cost cutting measures – which then

leads to the subsequent reliance on the global factory, independent developers work towards

creating a cultural product, something that reflects their culture, their values, and their beliefs.

Even moreso, these beliefs come into direct conflict with globalization, and for good reason.

Many of these developers work to offer an alternative to even their own experiences, if working

in a low paying position, you may see independent development as a means to better find your

personal voice and find better success. As Dyer-Witheford describe it,

Part of the significance of protests such as Seattle is the reappearance “on the street” of mass labor and

trades unions, which often play a crucial role in financing and mobilizing such events. Equally

significant however, is that these are not, in terms of tactics or theoretical work, the most aggressive or

innovative sectors. Such roles are assumed by subjects whose experiences of exploitation either

develop in new workplaces thrown up by the globalization process but outside the reach of the

traditional labor movement—in “McJobs” or as “netslaves”—or from other points in the global

factory. If the workplace continues to be the sharp-end of capitalism, it now figures as the savage

pinnacle of an iceberg resting on a submerged base of unwaged and invisible collective activity.

(Dyer-Witheford, 2002; Pg.11)

As independent developers begin to grow, there’s much in the way of a bright future

where developers can have more free reign over their products and have a far less amount of

pressure to associate with the major corporations that often times use the global factory. When

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talking to Robert Boyd, founder of the independent developer Zeboyd games, I asked him about

how successful the indie game market is on consoles – to which he replied,

The great thing about the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace is just how accessible it is. The

development software is free, there’s plenty of guides and documentation online, as well as a

community that is willing to help out new developers. It only costs $99/year to be able to submit your

games to the service which is about as cheap as you’re going to find anywhere. It’s a great place to get

started as a new indie developer.

On the downside, the traffic just isn’t there compared to the PC or smartphone marketplaces. The best

selling game on XBLIG has sold over 300,000 copies at $1 a game, whereas you can find million

sellers elsewhere. (The Motherboard)

In the same interview, Robert mentions the possibility of a fully downloadable console,

one where developers are able to publish their games far more easily then say sending off your

game to Foxconn to be pressed on a disk.

While there has been a lot of attention brought towards the process of relying on a global

work force, the attention has yet to yield any results; which is the problem thus far. While there

have been great discussions held, and with great progress being made towards crafting a strong

independent system, we’ve yet to see much research into this area, let alone much in the way of

results.

Being of the generation that grew up on video games, I see their potential anytime I boot

up a game; the potential for learning values, for exploring the true sense of self, or even to let the

creative mind mould itself into something brilliant. Video games have offered, and continue to

offer both great amounts of risk and reward. As we continue forward, there are many questions I

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have about the future of this state of exception. As has been established, we’re supposed to see a

state of exception under a moment of extreme emergency and crisis. Yet, looking at the current

predictiment, there’s no emergency or crisis to speak of. In fact, it would seem that this idea has

been twisted and distorted to better suit corporations and their models of development and

publishing.

As Clarke said, while the choice of ethical consumption comes down to choice, that’s not

the only reason why we wish to choose one product over another. Making the product seem like

a competitive choice is a goal that many in the independent video game community should aim

for. Robert Boyd himself has mentioned this, seeing the future of gaming as being an ethical

state of community. One where games can be downloaded onto a console where people, and if

the tools are made more accessible then they are now, then it remains to be seen that there could

be some potential for massive amounts of growth and maturity for the industry. As Kant

describes, what we need is a strong sense of good will.

Video games have existed for decades now, but it’s only until now that were beginning to

question the ethics of a process where the cost of efficient and cost-cutting business is human

life, and yet, consumers as a whole are becoming increasingly more aware of the power of a

purchase, and are beginning to see the true value of an ethical purchase. While some may use

ethics as a means to promote an immoral product, there are still those held accountable by their

own virtues and actions. That’s why we pay a few cents more for fair trade coffee, or spend a

few dollars more to shop at an organic grocery market; because sometimes the value of ethics is

worth the extra dollar. If it means that we as consumers are beginning to value the workers and

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the products that they produce, then we begin to make a difference for many who work under

oppression.

This is why, the goal of many in the future shouldn’t be to simply observe and report. As

many in the video game industry have done that thus far, players, developers, media, and

publishers need to begin considering alternative options for how video games conduct business

as a whole. If not, I fear that the resistance movement made by Foxconn employees would be

wasted, as if to invalidate their pursuit of freedom, truth, and democracy in a prison made by

those who were meant to protect these very workers.

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Sources Cited
Agamben, Giorgi. (2005) State of Exception.
Chicago, The University of Chicago Press

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1958)

Aristotle. Politics. English translations from Aristotle, The

Politics, trans. Jowett, ed. S. Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988).

Clarke, Nick (2008) From Ethical Consumerism to Political. Geography Compass Vol/Issue: 2
(6), Pages: 1870-1884

Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2002) “Global Body, Global Brain/ Global Factory, Global War: Revolt
of the Value-Subjects” in The Commoner, No. 3.

Foucault, Michel. Naissance de la Biopolitique : Cours au Colle`ge de France, 1978–1979

(Paris: Gallimard, 2004)

Kant, Immanuel. 1785. 'First Section: Transition from the Common Rational Knowledge of
Morals to the Philosophical', Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals.

Mark Lilla, "Reading Strauss in Beijing," New Republic December 17, 2010 p 15

Veblen, Thorstein. (1899) Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of
Institutions. New York: Macmillan. 400 pp., also: 1994 Dover paperback edition, ISBN
0-486-28062-4, 1994 Penguin Classics edition

Wagner, W. (2010, May 28th) iPad Factory in the Firing Line. Retrieved June 1st, 2010, from
Der Spiegel website: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,697296,00.html

Zittrain, J. (2009, December 8th) Work the New Digital Sweatshops. Retrieved June 1st, 2010,
from Newsweek website: http://www.newsweek.com/2009/12/07/work-the-new-digital-
sweatshops.html#

The Motherboard, Robert Boyd Interview Retrieved on April 2nd, 2011 at

http://www.themotherboard.ca/2011/03/robert-boyd-interview/

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