Andrew Douglas

Miscellaneous

VA-11 Hall-A and the Gamification of Labor

VA-11 Hall-A: Digital Playgrounds and Workspaces

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, released in 2016 by Sukeban Games, has you playing as a Jill, a bartender, spending your nights mixing drinks and talking to customers of the VA-11 Hall-A bar in the year 20XX. Lots of different characters come and drink, from members of law enforcement to android sex workers to dogs in Hawai’ian shirts. Over time, you get to know your customers, talking to them about their lives, learning their favorite drinks, and discussing current events. As you play, you also learn more about Jill and her mysterious past, along with emotions she has been bottling up for years.

I was very surprised at the emotional depth of this game, several moments being packed with quite a bit of emotional tension, slowly built throughout the nights. The rich story is slowly revealed throughout visual novel portions, with intermittent bartending portions. Most of the game is clicking through dialogue, in addition to following simple recipes to mix drinks for customers. In between shifts, Jill goes home to scroll on her phone, pay bills, and talk to her cat. This game does an incredible job at drawing the player in to the life of a bartender, and transforming repetitive labor and social interactions into soothing gameplay.

VA-11 Hall-A very effectively transforms reading text and working a service job into an engaging gameplay experience, expertly utilizing gamification. Alongside Matt Garite’s work, “The Ideology of Interactivity (or, Videos games and the Taylorization of Leisure)”, the game’s simple gameplay reveals an underlying system of work evaluation and surveillance.

In the first night of work, Jill goes over the basics of making drinks, introducing the menu and mixing system. Drinks must follow the menu exactly to come out correctly, or else a trash drink is made, and the player must restart the process. This system is incredibly binary- the drinks can only be right or wrong, and a small mistake results in complete failure. As Garite describes, “Games are… sorting machines: not ‘eyes that watch,’ so much as ‘devices that examine’” (Garite, 11). And as seen in VA-11 Hall-A, the player’s “actions are processed by means of a binary logic: right or wrong, success or failure, punishment or reward” (Garite, 11). The drink mixing system simulates freedom by allowing the player to mix as much of each ingredient for as long as they want- however, this interface is not the game. The actual game is the dichotomic algorithm which determines the value of a player’s decisions, fed to the player through the order and serve system. This grand evaluation is furthered by the end-of-night payment overview, where the player can see how they performed and how they were rewarded- with digital currency. Together, these digital evaluation elements create a “right” and “wrong” way to play the game, as VA-11 Hall-A does a great job of pushing the player to do exactly what it wants.

In addition, the experience of playing VA-11 Hall-A is incredibly basic, with a vast majority of the “gameplay” comprising of clicking through dialogue, and the mixing is simple, allowing you to take your time or reset. However, this play is not idle, and the game does not progress without player input. Players do not delegate their action to the game, but the game delegates its action to the player, as what could be text continually scrolling now requires the player to act. This delegation is a direct gamification of menial tasks, but because of this, the game transforms these tasks into a fun experience.

Clicking through dialogue was my favorite part of the game; I loved learning about the characters’ lives sentence by sentence, at my own pace. In addition, the game rewards you with small breaks in between, which break up the nights and help keep it from becoming boring or repetitive. While I was having fun, I was “willingly subjecting [myself] to the rules of the game… [learning] to behave in accordance with the commandments of the game” (Garite, 10), as I began to memorize drink recipes and remember what certain regulars enjoyed. VA-11 Hall-A’s use of gamification to subject it players, willingly, to their own rules and binary judgement demonstrates the deliberate utilization of gamification, and seeing how much I enjoyed the experience, quite effectively so.

A further aspect of gamification found in VA-11 Hall-A is also an introduction of stress, as Jill must make enough money at her job- by correctly making drinks and earning tips- to pay her rent, as well as buy certain objects online to maintain her focus. At certain points during the game, I was incredibly stressed at making my rent- even though this is a video game, and doesn’t mean anything- making sure I got everybody’s order exactly correct. One week, I barely made my rent by about $7. Similarly, in between nights, Jill must purchase a select item from an online shop, or else she will lose focus the next day and forget what customers order. This motivates players to do a good job at their shift, makin enough money to purchase items and keep focus the next day, much as consumerist advertising motivates workers to generate capital for their employers so they might purchase a treat for themselves.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this game, and thought the dialogue and simple gameplay created a very relaxing experience, even with the fear of not making rent or having a bad social interaction. The gamification of service labor also makes me think of games such as Stardew Valley, which turn menial labor like farming and construction into a fun and repetitive game loop. Additionally, it makes me think of how gamification is used in actual corporate spaces, often to the benefit of shareholders rather than workers. Nevertheless, VA-11 Hall-A very effectively utilizes gamification to a fun experience out of service work.

Works Cited:

VA-11 Hall-A, Sukeban Games, 2016

• play the game here:

“The Ideology of Interactivity (or, Videos games and the Taylorization of Leisure)”, Matt Garite, 2003

• read the article here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221217306_The_Ideology_of_Interactivity_or_Video_Games_and_Taylorization_of_Leisure