Surveillance in videogames is a well-known phenomenon. Designated as the fastest-growing sector of the videogame industry, mobile games – particularly free-to-play games – capitalise substantially on the collection of user data. Based on the promise of offering personalised gaming and advertising experiences, a vast quantity of data, including personal identifier and geolocation data, is acquired through players’ mobile devices. While the information obtained may appear fragmented or invisible to players, they are consolidated in the hands of data brokers, resulting in a very lucrative economic sector. From this perspective, the practice of the mobile game, although innocuous at first consideration, raises essential ethical questions regarding the ludocapitalist surveillance dispositif established by this industry. In this chapter, we seek to problematise everyday surveillance in mobile gaming, explain how the videogame and marketing industries operate it, and examine gamers’ (“ordinary” citizens) involvement in the banalisation of this massive data gathering.
This research was conducted within the “Canada Research Chair on Big Data and Gaming Communities” and was funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).