Digital game industry in the globalizing ekonomy: A case study of digital game developers

The digital games industry, as one of the important industries based on digitalization, is an industrial field that advances its development depending on the change of technology, is based on creative and technical knowledge, and includes the qualified workforce required by the digital economy. Digital games industry expanding every day by increasing its volume in Turkey and the World, is chosen for this project because it is one of the most suitable areas where change and transformation process in labor and working behavior could be observed. In this study, the basic problematic of how new communication technologies shape a "new" and "digital" economy and how they transform the structure and quality of labor is set out. The aim of this study is to try to understand the differentiating qualities of labor in new capitalism shaped by new technologies, by focusing on working conditions, cultures and labor processes of game developers who work in digital games industry in Turkey. How the labor is re-shaped, which labor types emerged and the effects of transformation of the work process is explained through examining the "Digital Game Developers working for Digital Games Industry in Turkey" example. For this purpose, the qualitative research method has been adopted and the participants have been accessed by purposeful sampling technique. The data obtained by thorough in-depth interviews with digital games developers in Turkey working independent, freelance or in corporate companies; have been analyzed in correlation with the relevant literature. The findings show that the features of new communication Technologies such as "speed", "moment", "quickness", "interactivity" take on new and different views with digitalization processes and shape a new economy. Digitalization processes in the new economy caused changes in the labor structure and qualifications. Digital game developers define forms of labor in the context of "emotional labor", "creative labor", "audience labor", "free labor", "digital labor". The data obtained reveal that the digital game industry cannot be reduced to a single form of Labor, and that new forms of Labor and work exist within the digital game industry. Keywords: Digital Games Industry, Digital Game Developers, Digital Labor, New Forms of Labor, New Communication Technologies