Ludotariat in Minecraft – socioeconomic reflections on the role of the player in modern long-term game modes

Abstract

This paper constitutes an exploration of the situation of the ludotarian – a player who invests a great amount of time in a particular game but is reluctant to pay for microtransactions – within the environment of servers in the game Minecraft that are administered independently of the game’s creators. The source of information is the author’s autoethnographic work: through participation in gameplay and by keeping ongoing written notes, the author obtained the perspective of a player positioned at the bottom of the social hierarchy, thus predisposed to engaging in gameplay as the ludotarian. The most important observations are: the subordination of gameplay to economic mechanisms and the fact that rewards – most often a non-transferable in-server currency – do not compensate for the labor required to obtain them, resulting in an inward accumulation of resources: during such gameplay, the ludotarian produces nothing. The status of owned by players goods is also debatable, as servers are often reset to prevent excessive inflation that would discourage players from accumulating greater capital, thus from engaging in gameplay. The servers themselves are administered by not fully transparent entities that frequently violate the official guidelines by Minecraft’s creators. The grassroots server environment, which induces ludotarization, is therefore in no way better than those created by game developers.