The Production of Machinic Subjectivity in Online PC Games

Abstract

This paper analyzes the production of machinic subjectivity in Korean online PC gaming culture by applying Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of "machine" and Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter's framework. It examines PCs as technical machines, PC Bangs as cultural spaces, and the subjectivities shaped through in-game interactions and community practices across four dimensions: technical, corporate, biopolitical, and war machine. The study investigates PCs' cultural and social significance, corporate mechanisms of control, the biopolitical processes that routinize user behavior, and the potential of collective actions like truck protests and "lying flat" as war machines. By focusing on the relationship between technological machines and subjectivity, this paper contributes to critical game studies by offering insights into how gaming cultures produce, regulate, and challenge dominant subjectivities.