Playgrounds as 'workgrounds': How Real-money trading transforms the gaming experience

Abstract

Video games need to provide unproductive spaces for play. However, the industrial nature of their development makes profitability a necessity, which materialises through monetisation methods such as Real-money trading (RMT), which allows players to earn economic income through transactions with in-game items. This paper examines, through a literature review, several paradigmatic case studies involving this form of monetisation, allowing us to map the evolution of RMT from a marginal practice to a full-fledged monetisation model and revealing an instrumentalised use of game items to promote their trading, systematically leading to the emergence of practices associated with labour between players. Our findings show that under the influence of RMT, play becomes a productive activity that transforms playgrounds into 'workgrounds'.