An Exploitation Ecosystem Model for Fan-Based Labour in the Games Industry

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
The Exploitation Ecosystem (ExEc) model argues that labour exploitation of professional cosplayers in the games industry persists in affluent Western economies, not only in developing-world contexts, sustained by poverty, job insecurity, weak unionisation, lax regulation, and the cultural devaluation of fan labour and "women's work."
02
The model treats exploitation as a process with three entry pathways (deception, enticement, and pressure), three sustaining mechanisms (including debt and income management, "exposure dollars," and the "company store" model), and four exit pathways (personal, internal culture, external society, and regulatory).
03
The paper builds on Crane's (2013) framework of contextual conditions and organisational slavery management capabilities, positioning low-legitimacy gig workers such as cosplayers as particularly vulnerable to exploitation dynamics.
04
The model extends beyond cosplay to other affluent fan-based labour contexts, including esports participants and third-party content creators, and is framed as a tool for analysing passion-driven creative industries more broadly.
05
The paper is conceptual and incomplete: only the entry and sustainment layers of the planned three-layer model are developed in detail, while exit pathways are illustrated through examples such as the UK and Australian Modern Slavery Acts, unionisation and pay transparency efforts, #MeToo, and consumer boycotts.
06
The authors acknowledge the model contains no quantitative data and that empirical validation is reserved for future work, so its claims currently rest on illustrative examples rather than measured evidence.
07
The paper's main contribution is the argument that exploitation in affluent Western fan labour deserves the same analytical scrutiny applied to labour exploitation in manual and developing-world settings.

Summary

This paper proposes the Exploitation Ecosystem (ExEc) model to explain how labour exploitation persists within affluent Western economies, using professional cosplayers in the games industry as its primary case study. Its central argument is that exploitation is not confined to overtly coercive, developing-world contexts but is sustained in wealthy societies by poverty, job insecurity, weak unionisation, lax regulation, and the cultural devaluation of fan labour and "women's work." Drawing on Crane's (2013) framework of contextual conditions and organisational slavery management capabilities, the authors position low-legitimacy gig workers such as cosplayers as particularly vulnerable to these dynamics.

The model describes exploitation as a process rather than a single event. It identifies three entry pathways (deception, enticement, and pressure), three sustaining mechanisms (including debt and income management, "exposure dollars," and the "company store" model), and four exit pathways (personal, internal culture, external society, and regulatory). Illustrative examples drawn from the games and cosplay sectors are used to show how these elements operate in practice. The model extends to other affluent fan-based labour contexts, including esports participants and third-party content creators, and is framed as a tool for analysing passion-driven creative industries more broadly.

The paper's scope is conceptual and limited in its current form. Only the first two of three planned layers of the model are developed in detail, covering entry and sustainment, while the exit pathways are presented through supporting examples such as the UK and Australian Modern Slavery Acts, unionisation and pay transparency efforts, and social movements including #MeToo and consumer boycotts. The authors acknowledge that the model contains no quantitative data and that empirical validation is reserved for future work. Its principal contribution is the argument that exploitation in affluent Western fan labour merits the same analytical scrutiny applied to labour exploitation in manual and developing-world settings.