Play Labor from the Perspective of Marx's Alienated Labor

Abstract

The play labor under Marx's alienated labor vision refers to the play as the purpose of the labor, this kind of labor is affected by consumer culture, street sports activities, electronic games and so on. This article through the analysis of Marx's alienated labor theory, and from the daily life of the selection of electronic games this case to explain the alienation mechanism behind the play labor, pointing out the new situation of players being exploited by capital. This paper analyzes Marx's alienated labor theory and makes an in-depth analysis of "play labor from the perspective of Marx's alienated labor". Through the analysis, it can be seen that play labor is a special form of alienated labor which is influenced by consumer culture, street sports activities and electronic games. It not only makes people feel "invisibly enslaved", but also affects the way of behavior and thinking in People's Daily life. In the current social environment, people are used to accepting the fast-food culture, lack of judgment and self-control, it is easy to become a free worker in the game industry chain under the cover of the casual meaning of online games. With the deep integration and development of platform capitalism and information capitalism, digital media technology has gradually erased the boundaries between reality and virtual, leisure and labor. Scholars have attributed this behavior of participating in online games for the purpose of entertainment and leisure and generating a large amount of surplus value for game companies to a new form of digital labor -- play labor.