Doing a favour or doing one’s job? A relational work perspective on precarious commitment in the digital games industry

Drawing on the theoretical framework of ‘relational work’ in economic sociology, the article examines the phenomenon of ‘precarious commitment’ – when employees’ commitment to their work and colleagues simultaneously exposes them to the risk of self-exploitation. The study analyses semi-structured interviews with game developers in the Swedish digital games industry. The article demonstrates the negotiated meanings, relations and compensations for seemingly voluntarily unpaid or paid extra work and the ambiguities and mismatches that emerge when the norms of favour exchange and formal exchange intersect. The analysis highlights accounts of collegial reciprocity, non-reciprocated favours as well as self-blaming and guilting practices. The article contributes to the relational work literature by demonstrating the dynamic interplay between reciprocal and transactional relations within the formal structure of employment. It shows that it is the very intersection between the formal and the informal – where the boundary between morally induced favour reciprocity and formal expectations is indistinct – that may harbour precarious commitment. Hence, it adds new knowledge to the sociology of work through a nuanced analysis of the interactive processes through which precarious commitment is both questioned and potentially reproduced. The article suggests that the unspoken and hence hidden character of gift-giving opens opportunities for exploitation without accountability, which may transfer responsibility to individual employees while obscuring collective solutions.