Videogame care: taking care at the click of a button

Overview & Synopsis

This article looks at the informal work done by high-level female gamers in video games multijoueur·euse·s. The aim is to analyse informal work, gender relations and video games together. The focus is on the positions, roles and occupations performed online. Playing time, skills and the criteria used to construct them have all been widely studied (Boutet, 2012 ; Triclot, 2012), making the masculine the neutral in terms of videogame legitimacy. On the other hand, few studies have focused on women’s day-to-day gaming and their in-game work experiences. This study – which is based on a sociological survey conducted between 2012 and 2018 using interviews (74) and home observations (1,736 hours), and also on images depicting the daily lives of female gamers – fills this gap. The aim is to study the practice of videogames through the systems of valorisation and legitimacy they underpin, and the notion of care and its work at the heart of gaming activity.