For the Win

Cory Doctorow'lle nuortenkirja on sivistyksen työkalu, jonka tarkoituksena on muutakin kuin kertoa tarina. For the Winissä opetus yhdistyy onneksi vetävään tarinaan, eikä nouse pääosaan.

For the Win kertoo maailmanlaajuisista nettipeleistä ja niiden pelaajista. Kultafarmareista ja työläisistä, jotka tavoittelevat itselleen parempia työolosuhteita. Ilman työtaistelua parempia oloja ei saa, joten työläisten on järjestäydyttävä. Kiinan ja Intian kultafarmeilla ammattiliittoja ei kuitenkaan katsota hyvällä.

For the Win kertoo nuorten päähenkilöidensä lisäksi maailmantaloudesta, työläisten oikeuksista ja työpolitiikasta, oikeudesta ja nettipeleistä. Isot nettipelit ovat jääneet minulta väliin, joten niiden maailmaan sukeltaminen oli mielenkiintoista. For the Win on myös mainio johdatus talousmaailman kiemuroihin ja niihin kieroutuneisiin menetelmiin, joilla rahaa tahkotaan tyhjästä. Kirjassa on paikoin infodumppauksen makua, mutta se ei haittaa, koska infodumpit ovat niin mielenkiintoisia.

Tämän kirjan saisi suomentaa. Nuortenkirjana For the Win on erinomainen: vauhdikas tarina mielenkiintoisesta aiheesta ja siinä sivussa se kertoo jotain hyödyllistä maailmanjärjestyksestä, herättelee hyviä kysymyksiä ja antaa ajattelemisen aihetta. Suosittelen aikuisillekin!

Kirja löytyy Doctorow'n nettisivuilta ilmaiseksi useissa eri e-kirjamuodoissa, kuten Doctorow'n muutkin kirjat. (6.12.2011)

do you like your fiction to be as educational as nonfiction? i do!
do you have an interest in the global economy, economics in general, on-line gaming, unionization, social justice, and/or sticking it to the man? i do!

even if you're not sure about whether you really require these things when selecting a book, you should read For The Win anyway. it's top asset is the novelty of subject matter. this not your standard YA fare and i would challenge anyone to name a novel with this kind of sophisticated global economic awareness. and though it is YA, i daresay that every adult i know apart from maybe my financial adviser and my college mentor will learn something from it. it's employ of metaphors and some pretty plain language to describe global financial transactions and macroeconomic principles borders on brilliant.

on top of that, the story is smartly written, well paced, and stay-up-till-3-to-finish-it compelling.

Slightly pedantic (a downfall of many YA books), Cory Doctorow explains economics, labor movements and socialism to kids via this near future romp through the MMORPG sweatshops of India and China.

MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) are hugely popular (see: World of Warcraft), and Doctorow uses real life examples of players creating real mini-economics as a springboard. Just like you can apparently buy credits in Second Life using REAL MONEY, so do Doctorow's young teenage heroes discover the various ways to make money and get exploited via your talents in the online world.

The story moves along quickly, and Doctorow paints a variety of settings (California; Bombay; a company town in China; Singapore) in a realistic, fascinating light. He clearly knows his stuff. Role players of the world unite!

Took a while to read this book on my phone.

I had to give up. It was too technical and not nearly compelling enough to get through.

I really enjoyed this book, if you like this I think you will also like Reamde

Is categorized as young adult novel type but is for sure for adults and for some of the youngest ones also, some parts might be not so easy to follow, economical stuff talk for example.
But is very nice to read and the subject(s) of it is/are painfully actual.

I loved [b:Little Brother 954674 Little Brother Cory Doctorow http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349673129s/954674.jpg 939584] so I picked up For the Win, even though I might not have otherwise based on its description. I had a bit of a hard time getting into the complicated gamer world and gamer economies–I suspect diehard WoW fans might appreciate this book more, though I think Doctorow does about as good of a job as humanly possible to put everything in non-gamer terms. Still, the plot was engaging and I felt like I learned about economics from reading this. And I love reading about a good union struggle as much as the next leftie.