From hobbyist to professional : the identities of esports and game development professionals in Singapore

• Main Author: Chua, Victoria Puay Ru
• Other Authors: Patrick Williams
• Format: Thesis-Master by Research
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Sociology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152795
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this thesis, I look at identity work as a generic social process through studying the identities of esports professionals and game designers as they emerge in the process of professional socialization. In a Singaporean context, aspiring games professionals are undertaking games-related careers against a backdrop of instability, uncertainty, and stigmatization, with the hopes of continuing their gaming hobbies and engaging in enjoyable, meaningful work that simultaneously legitimates their gaming practices. I adopt a symbolic interactionist perspective to study the social and role identities of these games professionals and their associated meanings, which are interactionally constructed with their peers and instructors. I collected data about these two professional groups through participant observation and semi-structured interviews at two field sites: a local esports association (“LEA”) and a local tertiary institution (“LTI”) for game development. I find that games-related work is also about processes of identification: professionals construct “hobbyist” and “professional” identities in their talk, and the work of esports or game development involves socialization in which aspiring games professionals construct and internalize meanings, expectations, and obligations as part of adopting their new professional identities.