FTW

Cory Doctorow’s For The Win is a story based on three individuals that met each other through playing MMORPGs. There are several main characters in the book each representing different social issues we face right now. Mathew is a great gold farmer who worked for Boss Wing but he rebelled with other gold farmers and went on strike. Mathew symbolizes modern day unionization of workers due to poor working condition. A good example would be Chinese workers; around five months ago, Foxcoon Technology Group had to deal with unionized workers because the pay was too low that some workers suicide in order for their family to collect compensation (the compensation was larger than what these workers could make in a lifetime). Subsequent events happened in other factories owned by various huge corporations leading to a significant increase in wages across the Industrial China.

Mathew’s character also portrays the current working conditions and the darker side of China and other third-world country. Mathew represents a lower class man trying to survive by making a living out of playing computer games. This can be translated to sweatshop workers struggling to pay their bills off low wages.

Other characters such as Leonard/Wei-Dong is a gamer who ran away from home because his parents were about to send him away. Leonard’s introduction into the book demonstrated a level of cultural acceptance issue. He adopts a Chinese name, wakes up 1am, to raid with his online friends. His character shows some of the gaming problem among youth in the society and the means these players seek to find their own community and culture. Leonard went as far as to flip his life around in order to find belongingness. Other characters such as Lu, Mala, Mr. Banerjee, Jasmin, etc each plays an important in the book but more importantly; each of them represents a social issue revolving around gaming.

Though I was never a gold farmer, I knew one. He was recruited at an internet cafe and was promised cash for a certain amount of ingame currency. It sounded enticing and promising because it becomes a source of income for him to pay for his personal desires. However, he realized that it has taken a toll on his life. After several intervention, he finally quit his job without any “problems” and went to college.