All Against All - Tom Boland on our modern gladiators and the real-world hunger games (EoP03)

From Squid Game to Hunger Games to Fortnite, how did the trope of cruel, inescapable games become so central to the stories that animate 21st century neoliberal capitalism? With tom Boland We explore how the game changes the player and how this fits into western literature's beloved 'character arc', as well as the new-age obsession with personal transformation. More information: weirdeconomies.com/podcasts/exploits-of-play THE EXPLOITS OF PLAY is a 10-episode podcast about how games and play have moved from the margin to the centre of global capitalism. It is produced by Weird Economies and hosted by Max Haiven. Tom Boland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University College Cork. His main research interests are in critique, culture, unemployment and welfare though recently Dr. Boland has been interested in the proliferance of dystopian games media such as The Hunger Games and “Squid Game”.