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This dissertation examines the phenomenon of Instagram influencer engagement pods to explore the dynamics of antagonism, resistance, and struggle unique to the structuring conditions and valorization processes of platform capitalism. I argue that beneath the seemingly frictionless data-driven accumulation strategies of social media platforms like Instagram lies a familiar struggle between the subjects of labour and capital, the “struggle over measure” (de Angelis & Harvie, 2009). Instagram influencers are native-to-online, professional content producers who have amassed an online following that they monetize in various ways. These digital producers are the unique progeny of platform capitalism; they operate as independent “entrepreneurs-of-the-self,” yet they are tethered to platform companies whose business interests and proprietary digital architectures set the conditions for their work and employability. The influencer engagement pod is one response to their conditions. Engagement pods are platform-prohibited communities of strategic engagement and data production, where participants trade likes, comments, and follows to inflate their metrics, and attempt to “game” Instagram’s algorithms. Through sixteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Instagram influencers who have experience with pods, I unpack the specific tensions and antagonisms that animate this emerging field and explore the possibilities and limits of collective organizing against social media platforms. I ask, how do Instagram influencers understand their relationship with Instagram and the role that it plays in their work? What impasses, coercions, and constraints do engagement pods respond to? How do Instagram influencers see their own power and resistance in and through the pods? And what does this tell us about the broader possibilities for struggle and resistance for subjects of platform capitalism? Findings illustrate a struggle over autonomy and value between influencers and the platform that endows them with “influencer” status. I propose that influencer engagement pods express the contradictions of influencers’ conditions, articulating both a challenge and a commitment to the measures and value regimes of Instagram. Nevertheless, I argue this data-based subversion reveals the platform’s operations of data “capture” to be the site of a persistent struggle to subordinate subjects to the instruments of capitalist valorization - the daily struggle over measure. Theoretical implications and future research agendas are discussed.

This report continues the work of the IGDA in bench-marking employment conditions in the game industry. In particular, it updates the 2014 Employment Report from the Developer Satisfaction Survey (DSS) data by profiling the DSS data from 2015 and 2016, which was specifically geared to examine questions about employment conditions in the game industry. Like the 2014 report, this report includes data about key employment issues such as working time, compensation and benefits, and job security. However, new in the 2015 and 2016 DSS is a primary focus on understanding the employment conditions of game developers in different employment relationships. We present separate ‘employment profiles’ for developers who are: 1) in employee relationships (full- and part-time), 2) self-employed; and 3) working as freelancers or contractors. As the data allows, the report also includes information about the features of the contemporary workplace and industry job market and its evolution.

Game developers continue to recognize the need for diversity in the workplace, in the industry, and in game content, with developers scoring these items as important in higher rates than ever before. However, while the overwhelming majority of game developers recognize the importance of diversity, game development as a profession can still be unwelcoming, with half of survey respondents asserting that they do not believe there is equal treatment of developers, and half of respondents witnessing or experiencing inequity. Also concerning are the statistics around tenure in the industry, number of employers over the past five years, and intent to stay with current employers. Respondents report an average of 2.2 employers in the past 5 years, and self-employed contractors report working the most hours and also receiving the least compensation. Put simply, game development is at risk of losing the most experienced talent in the industry, and without proper support and protection, freelancers may bear the burden of the industry’s changing talent profile.

In this article we use open-ended responses from the 2014 and 2015 DSS to highlight the contrasting ways men and women view the challenge of low female representation in the industry. Of course, women’s underrepresentation is the result of many different and layered issues that mirror the systemic discrimination that women face across male-dominated spaces. However, the data from the DSS show us that there are differences in what men and women see as the primary reasons for this underrepresentation. These differences reflect an important chasm in how the problem is experienced across gender.

The international video game industry’s revenue was estimated at 91.5 billion US dollars in 2015 (Sinclair, 2015) and it is the source of a growing number of direct and indirect jobs around the world. Games are quickly surpassing other entertainment media in both revenue and user rates. However, games and the industry that makes them continue to face significant challenges associated with diversity in terms of the content of the games made, the people who play the games, and the demographic makeup of the game industry labour force. The topics of sexism and the experiences of females in the game industry have received considerable attention in recent years due to a number of high profile events. It is against this backdrop that we summarize the demographic trends, the incidence of demographic differences, and the perceptions of diversity in the game industry over an 11 year span. Throughout the report we consider diversity to refer to demographic diversity based on factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, ability, and sexual orientation.