• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.74
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• pp.7-37
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• 2015

The study explores how the discourses on game addiction, which emphasize diligence and sincerity for labor and self-control, and professional gamers, who are trapped in pleasures of playing games in the virtual world, cohabit in Korean society. Progamers have grown from entertainment industry enlarged along with the current of the economic 'postmodernization,' mentioned by Hardt and Negri(1997; 2001; 2004). Hardt and Negri have elaborated on the economic postmodernization with the notion 'immaterial labor,' which blurs the line between economic (instrumental) actions and humane qualities as well as pertains to the potentiality of resistant practices against the power of modernity. From this perspective, progamers' labor is understood as 'affective labor,' an aspect of immaterial labor with the potentiality of resistance. However, meticulous examination of progamers' labor in this study reveals that progamers control their affects systematically, strategically, and rationally for their materialistic success. Progamers, while performing postmodern mode of labor, are subordinate to modern work ethics, which lead them to lose the potentiality of resistance. Consequently, while the discourses on game addiction and progamers outwardly form sharp contrast to each other, the two indeed are placed in tandem in the vein of modern work ethics of Protestantism.