Information Revolution

Part one of this book provides a clearer understanding of the cultural importance of the computer game in the information revolution. Kirkpatrick explains that, “It is claimed that computer games have become culturally mainstream, that everyone plays them regardless of age and gender, and that they are a part of a new social and cultural reality with political import” (Kirkpatrick, 2013, p.9). In the years that computer games have developed, there has been rapid transformation in our society, such as, the emergence of “the information revolution” and “globalization.” 

In The Cosa Nostra of the Data Processing Industry, Nathan Ensmenger explains that the emergence of the “information technology is a revolution that would radically reshape the landscape of the modern corporation, completely reversing the recent trend toward participative management, recentralizing power in the hands of a few top executives, and utterly decimating the ranks of middle management” (Ensmenger, 2010, p. 154). As described in Computer Games and the Social Imaginary, this new form of production makes the labor process more of an adventure and it also places demands on inner resources of each individual employee because “networked organizations rely on people to manage themselves much more than the old hierarchical bureaucracies” (Kirkpatrick, 2013, p. 22). The industrial model of production has given way to this flexible system that is horizontally integrated; instead of being managed from above, workers take responsibility for their own role in creative processes, which makes this work much more creative, but also economically unstable. Overall, computer games have altered the way in which the workforce is managed and how production is run.