社会杂志 ›› 2026, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (3): 57-82.

• 专题二：劳动的新形态 • 上一篇    下一篇

动员与压抑：中国游戏产业劳动主体性的片段性调用机制

潘竹涛(), 吴桐雨   

  • 出版日期:2026-05-20 发布日期:2026-07-24
  • 作者简介:

    潘竹涛  浙江大学社会学系, E-mail:

    PAN Zhutao, Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University, E-mail:

    吴桐雨  浙江大学社会学系

    WU Tongyu, Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University

Mobilization and Suppression: The Fragmented Appropriation of Labor Subjectivity in China's Game Industry

Zhutao PAN(), Tongyu WU   

  • Online:2026-05-20 Published:2026-07-24

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摘要：

本文聚焦中国游戏产业的创造性劳动，探讨游戏开发者的劳动主体性在生产过程中如何被片段性调用。文章发现，游戏产业通过赛事招募具有特定主体性的“肝客”开发者，其主体性根源于游戏文化与长期游戏实践，既体现为基于热爱的高强度劳动投入意愿，也体现为游戏创作热情与玩家身份认同。然而，在趋于模块化的生产实践中，企业并未整体吸纳这一主体性，而是从不同维度加以动员或抑制：“肝”所代表的高强度劳动投入被制度化并转化为稳定的过度劳动，创作热情、玩家身份认同等主体性维度则受到压抑。本文将这一机制概括为片段性调用，进而揭示其作为劳动控制机制的运作逻辑、实践过程以及相应后果。

关键词: 创造性劳动, 劳动主体性, 劳动过程, 游戏产业, 模块化生产

Abstract:

The rise of the creative industries reflects emerging dynamics in contemporary China's economy and labor. This article examines creative labor in China's video game industry, exploring how game developers' labor subjectivity is embedded in the production process and how it is organized and mobilized. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 42 semi-structured interviews, the study finds that the game industry recruits a group of developers with a distinctive form of subjectivity, referred to as ganke(肝客), through game development competitions. Rooted in gaming culture and long-term gaming practices, this subjectivity manifests both as a passion-driven willingness to engage in high-intensity labor and as creative enthusiasm coupled with strong gamer identity. However, under increasingly modularized production practices, firms do not incorporate this subjectivity as a whole, but rather differentially mobilize or suppress its various dimensions. The article conceptualizes this mechanism as fragmented appropriation. Specifically, the high-intensity labor represented by gan(肝) is institutionalized and transformed into stable forms of overwork, while dimensions such as creative passion and gamer identity are suppressed. In response, developers adopt various coping strategies: some seek promotion in pursuit of more creative work, while others channel their creative passion into side projects, gradually withdrawing emotional investment from their daily labor. While existing research tends to treat subjectivity as a resource that can be mobilized as a whole, this article emphasizes the complexity and multidimensionality of subjectivity. It introduces the concept of fragmented appropriation to capture a mechanism that operates on distinct dimensions of subjectivity, distinguishing it from approaches that treat subjectivity as a unified whole. In doing so, this article reveals the operational logic, practical processes, and consequences of this mechanism, thereby advancing theoretical discussions on the interaction between labor subjectivity and labor control in creative labor research.

Key words: creative labor, labor subjectivity, labor process, video game industry, modular production