Gaming the gift: The affective economy of League of Legends ‘fair’ free-to-play model
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JARRETT, Joshua (2021) Gaming the gift: The affective economy of League of Legends ‘fair’ free-to-play model. Journal of Consumer Culture. ISSN 1469-5405
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JoCC Gaming the Gift pre-print submission .pdf - AUTHOR'S ACCEPTED Version (default) Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Download (480kB) | Preview |
Abstract or description
With its release in late 2009, League of Legends (Riot Games) has influenced the game industry in several profound ways. Known for its vast popularity and its pivotal role in pioneering live streaming and electronic sports, League of Legends is also noteworthy for its model of ‘fair’ free-to-play. Described by Riot Games and many industry professionals as ‘fair’ due to its lack of any ‘pay-to-win’ content (Graft, 2013; Nutt, 2014), this model of free-to-play has gone on to influence a paradigmatic shift towards ‘games as a service’. In this study, the model of ‘fair’ free-to-play is critically framed as a lucrative affective economy involving reciprocal gift exchanges between players and commercial games developers. Drawing on 49 qualitative Reddit responses from players who buy in-game skins, this study positions the microtransactions of League of Legends as a notable example of affective economics that is bound up in reciprocal forms of commercial exchange. Framing this hybrid model of co-creative relations alongside examples from game, fan and Internet studies, it is the critical aim of this study to frame the microtransactions of League of Legends as an instance of affective valorisation. Paralleling the affective economics of various digital platforms, it is the view of this study that microtransactions in games should be considered as part of the same political economy of the Internet.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | The following article has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Consumer Culture. The final VOR is available online at: Jarrett, J. (2021) ‘Gaming the gift: The affective economy of League of Legends ‘fair’ free-to-play model’, Journal of Consumer Culture. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469540521993932 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Free-to-play, affective economy, gift economy, co-creativity, League of Legends, Reddit, skins, microtransactions, games as a service |
| Faculty: | School of Digital, Technologies and Arts > Esports |
| Depositing User: | Joshua JARRETT |
| Date Deposited: | 10 May 2021 09:56 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Feb 2023 14:01 |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/id/eprint/6901 |
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