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For the Win

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 2,845 ratings · 540 reviews

In the virtual future, you must organize to survive

At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual “gold,” jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, others seek to exploit this vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world’s poorest countries, where count...more

Hardcover, 480 pages

Published May 11th 2010 by Tor Teen

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Dec 28, 2012 Tfitoby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, young-adult

Apparently this is a young adult novel. I say apparently as I didn't really pick up on that fact throughout. How can a book that devotes a dozen pages at a time to discussing political, social, moral and economic ideals be aimed at thirteen year olds?

This is the multinational, multicultural story of how the future workers of the world might be unionised, told via the interlinked lives of disenfranchised game players who are being abused by their employers in one way or another.

“He hated it when
...more Apparently this is a young adult novel. I say apparently as I didn't really pick up on that fact throughout. How can a book that devotes a dozen pages at a time to discussing political, social, moral and economic ideals be aimed at thirteen year olds?

This is the multinational, multicultural story of how the future workers of the world might be unionised, told via the interlinked lives of disenfranchised game players who are being abused by their employers in one way or another.

“He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years.”

Can teen angst in a teenaged character just be considered good characterisation rather than aimed at teens? Nothing is sugarcoated in this story either, Doctorow uses strong violence alongside strong images and an entertaining post-cyberpunk story to craft some kind of hybrid GB84 meets The Windup Girl.

“We're going to fight this battle with everything we have, and we will probably lose. But then we will fight it again, and we will lose a little less, for this battle will win us many supporters. And then we'll lose *again*. And *again*. And we will fight on. Because as hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing.”

The didactic nature of Doctorow's prose could definitely leave the wrong readers cold and for me this was the only real flaw; whilst being an interesting and accessible education it was occasionally repetitive and stopped the natural flow of the story. This didn't dampen my enjoyment of the story too much but then I'm a thirty year old man who finds lots of things interesting to read about, but if you go back to the fact that it's supposedly aimed at teen boys/world of warcraft players I can't see the enthusiasm lasting through a treatise on union history or social contracts or some other complex economic idea. Also if the idea of reading page after page of in-game battle descriptions bores you, as it does me, think twice before paying for this one. Instead why not take advantage of Mr Doctorow's ideas on digital rights management and download it for free from his personal website? It's a no lose scenario. (less)

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Apr 30, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gaming, dystopia, adventure, 2010

I’m not sure if I’ve just read a novel or had a lesson in economics. Cory Doctorow’s dystopian novel For the Win tells the story of the exploitation of an online role playing game’s economy. In the running of what could be classed as electronic sweatshops throughout Asia, gold farmers suffer from very poor work conditions in the effort to mine gold and find virtual treasure to sell to first world customers. The novel has a typical ‘unite and rise against authority to improve our lifestyle’ plot...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

"A review of 'For the Win,' by Cory Doctorow."
by Cory Doctorow.

David was a hip, streetwise, golden-hearted teenager. He was a native of Mumbai. He was talking to his friend Ravi, who was slumped in a booth in the corner of the teahouse. Ravi was from San Diego; he had never been to India before.

"I read this great book recently," David said. "It's called For the Win, by a guy named Cory Doctorow."

Ravi perked up at this. He had heard of Doctorow. Didn't he have some blog where anti-corporate hips...more

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Oct 07, 2010 Lizzie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, young-adult, new-stuff

Chris brought a copy home from work for me, hurray.

I actually liked this a lot more than I thought I would. I expected it to make me cranky, but I really enjoyed reading it. When I thought hard about it, though, it was missing something... revelatory, I think, that's keeping me from rounding up the rating. In my heart. (And on Goodreads.)

One thing I knew right away, though -- it really is overlong. This story doesn't have to be 500 pages. To its credit, there isn't any thread or character I imme...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Xian rated it 3 of 5 stars

warning: for the uninitiated into gamer culture, be prepared to look up quite a number of terms, but I exhort you not to give up, because the book, masquerading as a video game book, actually wants to also say something about labour unions. Also, it's nowhere near as bad as A Clockwork Orange

For fiction, a 3.5,because I have harsh standards. It's a good book, but the writing is mediocre. But it has a geeky knowledge of of so many things close to my heart; it sure as hell is informative and enter...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Hunter rated it 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book for fans of video games, but also anyone interested in global economics. Don't let yourself be scared away by either! Both sides are clearly explained, and though I think your enjoyment would be greater if you had a basic grounding in these subjects, it's not necessary. The characters aren't dynamic (Except Wei-Dong, who I refuse to call Leonard, despite that being his "real" name.) The settings are amazingly believable, even Mission Control, and the plot is well woven. I know...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Byron rated it 5 of 5 stars

‘For The Win’ is possibly one of 2010′s best works of fiction, at least for those readers who enjoy books that deal with big issues. Paraphrasing other writers in the genre, author Cory Doctorow has said that “good science fiction predicts the present” and part of what makes the novel so enjoyable is that this story could be taking place next year. While his last novel, Little Brother, explored issues around civil liberties and state power in the post-9/11 USA, For The Win shows that Doctorow’s...more ‘For The Win’ is possibly one of 2010′s best works of fiction, at least for those readers who enjoy books that deal with big issues. Paraphrasing other writers in the genre, author Cory Doctorow has said that “good science fiction predicts the present” and part of what makes the novel so enjoyable is that this story could be taking place next year. While his last novel, Little Brother, explored issues around civil liberties and state power in the post-9/11 USA, For The Win shows that Doctorow’s unashamedly left-wing worldview extends to many other issues; globalisation, inequality, labour rights and the farcical nature of finance capitalism are all explored in the space of 375 pages.

The story revolves around “gold farming” the practice of amassing virtual wealth in an online multi-player video game, and then selling it for real-world currency. Typically, that virtual wealth is collected by people in the developing world, and sold to players in the developed world who want to avoid the work required to advance in the game. For the gold farmers, the income is comparable to what they could earn working in other available jobs. Of course, most of these gold farmers don’t own the computers and internet connections required to be a gold farmer (the means of production-albeit production of virtual commodities) and work for bosses who expropriate most of the wealth they create. Looking to remedy this situation is Big Sister Nor, a former garment factory worker in Malaysia who became a gold farmer after a strike caused the owners to move the factory to Indonesia. Nor has founded the “Industrial Workers of the World Wide Web” or “Webblies” (a homage to the Industrial Workers of the World (also known as Wobblies), the syndicalist union that had its heyday a century ago) and is organising gold farmers across borders in the virtual worlds they work in.

The story alternates between Nor’s group of organisers located in Singapore, and Leonard Goldburg (a teenager in LA who joins the cause of the gold farmers he befriends in-game), and further groups of gold farmers in Dharavi (India) and Shenzen (China). In switching between the locations, Doctorow is able to paint a vivid picture of the disparity between the United States; the planets largest slum, and the new ‘factory of the world’.

In parts you almost feel as though to be breathing the fumes of Dharavi’s plastic recycling plants. Shenzen, where most of the novel’s climactic action takes place, is like the archetypical dystopian city of cyberpunk fiction. But this is a post space-race subgenre of science fiction that is more down to earth (literally), as it often explores social issues, and is infinitely more realistic because the sweatshops, heavy handed police force, and authoritarian state exist today.

The novel also includes explanations of global economics between chapters (some influence of Doctorow’s Marxist parents is visible here). These are well placed and serve to reinforce parts of the story rather than distract from it. The only criticism I could make would be that with so many important characters there is little room for character development. A small number of characters are given elaborate back stories, but few change throughout the novel. This is a minor point however and For The Win is a thrilling read that should be in every high school library. An in-depth knowledge of economics, labour history, and massive multi-player video games is not required to enjoy it.(less)

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Aug 08, 2012 Molly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, politically-relevant

Every so often the news picks up on that strange phenomenon of virtual game-assets being traded for real money in the real, non-virtual, meatspace world. What it seldom mentions is that many of those assets are "mined" by real, non-virtual gamer-workers, sweating away in real, non-virtual internet-café factories. This book imagines what might happen if these "gold farmers" unionized, forming the Industrial Workers of the World Wide Web — the IWWWW, or "Webblies". It's a fantastic concept, brilli...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the third or fourth book that I've read by Cory Doctorow. His writing is less polished than some of the writers I've been reading lately (like DeLillo and Eggers) so it suffered a little by comparison. Like most sci-fi I've read, the real energy of the writing seemed to go into world-building. The characters and plot that come out of this approach are by necessity somewhat wooden because everyone knows that they are just there to flesh out this amazing world that the writer has created....more This is the third or fourth book that I've read by Cory Doctorow. His writing is less polished than some of the writers I've been reading lately (like DeLillo and Eggers) so it suffered a little by comparison. Like most sci-fi I've read, the real energy of the writing seemed to go into world-building. The characters and plot that come out of this approach are by necessity somewhat wooden because everyone knows that they are just there to flesh out this amazing world that the writer has created. The only way around this as far as I can tell is limiting the cast to one or two main characters (Gibson and Murakami come to mind) or writing massive, maximalist tomes (Pynchon, Wallace). In _For the Win_ the characters were interesting enough to keep me engaged in the story (which I basically read cover to cover!), but sometimes seem a little too 'on message' to have real life equivalents.

Also, as a spokesman for the technological left Doctorow has the double strike against him of being a writer with a serious axe to grind. More than a few times I wished that he would let the characters speak for themselves rather than have them (often repetitively) regurgitate statistics like, 'China is the only country where more women commit suicide than men.' True as that may be, it seems like there might be other things on one's mind when your boyfriend has just been shot and you're on the run from the law. Like, I dunno, maybe a more personal discussion of the things that you had hoped to do together but can't now, like raising a family together or opening a coffee shop or something else funny and weird. Life is funny and weird and making your characters in mouthpieces for trivia can steamroll out all that funniness and weirdness right quick.

In an interview for the book, Doctorow describes doing his research on China via new rss feeds and it shows. I'm probably more of a stickler on that part of the novel than most readers would be, but it bugged me how un-Chinese Doctorow's China felt to me. The constant dumplings (instant noodles would really be more appropriate for the gamer demographic, also the novel is set in Shenzhen and jiaozi are really more of a Dongbei thing), the mono-syllabic names of people (a girl named 'Jie' which in the most common usually tone means 'sister' and I've never heard of anyone using as a name) also, perhaps most annoyingly, the way the police are described as super-competent Orwellian thought police.

But really, that's all gravy and to be expected when an American writer takes on the topic of writing about life in the big C. If anything it inspires me because it shows how much cool stuff there is that goes over here under the radar of the Western media. Ultimately, this is not a book about China; it's a book about taking technology back from the technocrats and corporations and putting it in the hands of the disempowered. As one of the few modern fiction writers that seems to really take to heart DFW maxim to write 'morally persuasive, persuasively moral' books, Doctorow is a beacon of hope in a sea of despondency and complacency. His books aren't perfect, but they don't have to be, either. _For the Win_ takes an enormous amount of information and ideas and turns it into a catchy page turner with a strong moral message. I only wish that there were YA books like this around when I was a kid!

(less)

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Jun 12, 2012 Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: children-ya, games-and-gaming, maybe-reread-sometime

2.5. A while ago, I read Doctorow's short story "Anda's Game" in The Starry Rift. I enjoyed it and was curious to see what Doctorow would do with the idea of stories that took place mostly in MMORPG settings. (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, frequently shortened to MMO.) Oh, and you can read "Anda's Game" online here. It's unusual in that it deals with gold farmers (people who farm in-game currency and items and then sell them for real money) in a sympathetic way. This novel does...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Maggie Desmond-O'Brien rated it 3 of 5 stars

The extra long blurb kind of sums up how I felt about this book. Insanely awesome...but disappointing at the same time. Too long-winded. Not enough story. Long tangents I don't really care about. Lots of that achey sadness I get inside when an author/blogger I LOVE doesn't live up to my expectations.

Let's get this straight. I still adored this book. Cory Doctorow = the coolest, geekiest author you will ever have the pleasure of reading. He never fails to challenge my beliefs in a non-offensive,...more The extra long blurb kind of sums up how I felt about this book. Insanely awesome...but disappointing at the same time. Too long-winded. Not enough story. Long tangents I don't really care about. Lots of that achey sadness I get inside when an author/blogger I LOVE doesn't live up to my expectations.

Let's get this straight. I still adored this book. Cory Doctorow = the coolest, geekiest author you will ever have the pleasure of reading. He never fails to challenge my beliefs in a non-offensive, mind-blowing way, and For the Win was no exception. But it still wasn't nearly as awesome as Little Brother. Was it the fact that there was EVEN MORE techno-geekery jargon? Was it the fact that there were way too many characters and not enough action that didn't happen on computer screens? Was it that I just didn't care as much about virtual economies as I care about the security vs. freedom debate? Probably a combination of all three.

The only "virtual economies" I've ever participated in are Neopets, Virtual Horse Ranch, and Runescape; and I was a very sluggish participant at that. (Well, I rocked at Virtual Horse Ranch, possibly the nichiest game of all time, but that was also because I was stupid enough to invest my real money in a game; something I have sworn never, ever to do again, no matter how tempted I am to join Second Life. And yes, that sentence did run on.)

Actually, I find the way the Internet and the economy interact to be fascinating. Ironically, I'm now reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, which is an excellent nonfiction book that quotes Cory Doctorow on many issues. And yes, in case you are wondering, I am a nerd. (Whoops, sorry, intellectual bad @$$.) Point being, though, that no matter how interesting the techno-geekery behind this book was, the story was spread to thin to carry it as well as Little Brother did. Also, I got really confused as to how much was fiction and how much was real; something I hate because it makes me feel stupid when I quote what I think is fact and then get informed that it is way, way fiction.

Hey, look! Imagine that! Another book I could go on about for PARAGRAPHS AND PARAGRAPHS AND PARAGRAPHS. Let's sum it up: I really do find the facts behind this book fascinating. I read it, enjoyed it, and don't regret buying it. And bravo to Cory Doctorow for keeping it real with his multicultural characters. But if you loved Little Brother, you're going to be disappointed. And if Little Brother just wasn't your thing, you will probably hate this book.

I just wish I could throw myself behind this book as much as I'd like to, but I can't. It's still worth reading, especially in today's very virtual world, but it didn't leave me with that exciting tingly good-book feeling that Little Brother did.(less)

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Nov 10, 2011 Emily Collins rated it 5 of 5 stars

I started out on Doctorow's book Little Brother which, to this day, is certainly in my top ten list of favorite books. I don't think this book is quite on par with the other one, but that certainly doesn't mean it's not fantastic.
For the Win dives into a world within our work - the MMORGs mostly. I've been an online gamer for years and so I found that I connected with the characters on strangely intimate levels at times. Other times, of course, I found that I was not in the least bit similar to...more

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Oct 26, 2011 Zach W. rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is some where in between Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and Cory Doctrow's own Little Brother and maintains all the admirable characteristics of both.

With its main characters based in the USA, India, and China, it spans the globe with an international of workers strife. Every day thousands of children are forced into playing video games, earning virtual 'game gold' and selling it on the black market to fill the pockets of their bosses. These bosses are usually do not provide health

...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Susanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sff

Another fascinating economics lesson from Cory Doctorow. As a gamer, I enjoyed FTW because I understand (and love) MMORPGs. As someone who knows next to NOTHING about economics and particularly the socio-political situation in south east Asia, I felt decidedly...uneducated, even naive, throughout most of the book, especially as it's supposedly aimed at an audience much younger than me.

Doctorow doesn't write character stories, he writes about how certain bits of the world work, and how they might...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Courtney rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: multi-cultural-fiction, realistic-fiction, teen-fiction

Doctorow's books always make me feel smarter by the time I'm finished reading them. Part of it is the integration of Doctorow's vast techie knowledge, the rest is seeing the parallels in the real world. In this one, there are teens all over the world, playing MMRPs and getting paid to do it. On the surface, it sounds like a great deal. Until you realize that their employers are totally shady and violent. What are a bunch of gamers to do in order to be taken seriously as workers? Form a union, of...more

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Jul 05, 2011 D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Once upon a time, I tried to be a gamer. I made a toon and tried to level up, go on raids, and complete quests. But somewhere between levels 13 and 15 I found myself getting terribly bored. I discovered that I found gaming extremely boring. However, this book still intrigued me. I love the cover; it is interesting and engaging. I thought that the characters were fantastic. It facinated me that teenagers that were well-written enough that they seemed real could be involved in something as revolut...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Walter Underwood rated it 2 of 5 stars

Cory Doctorow sure is smart. He wrote this story, too, but that doesn't seem to matter because he is so busy telling you stuff, like how government borrowing and inflation work together, even though that has nothing to do with the story. And also how when we get together in the virtual, corporate-owned worlds, we can all work together as comrades for the common good and we don't even have to learn the words to "L'Internationale".

This is a "combine two things" book. Sometimes that works, this tim...more

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May 15, 2011 Stavros Tsiakalos rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have been struggling for a while now trying to decide how many stars to give this book. The concept and goal of the book are worth more than five stars. Explaining the importance of unions, human rights, dignity to an otherwise apathetic generation of teens by using the world of gaming that so often is held responsible for alienating them - I applaud this effort.

But then come the little things. The first acronym not used correctly one will happily overlook.
Then comes the chapter dedicated to t...more

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Apr 24, 2011 Joseph Cohen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, free-ebook

I've read a number of Cory Doctorow's books including Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Little Brother, and For the Win is definitely along the same lines, a high-concept book wrapped around a modern concept. Here's it economics and union labor, along with virtual economies and gold farming.

There are plenty of reviews that give their two cents on the plot and characters, so I'm not going to go into too much depth about that. As far as the writing goes, I was very disappointed. First, as othe...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Griffin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Make money playing games! It's true, and gamers recognize "gold farming"--the major concept behind Cory Doctorow's For The Win. Oppressed worker youths in Thailand, China, and India are called to unionize in a breakneck epic of gaming action and real-world violence s they seek fair work in virtual worlds where gold farmers power up characters for sale to players around the world. Mechanical turks respond to player interaction with non-interactive game features and teams go to war with gold farmi...more

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Feb 15, 2011 Lacey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

I enjoyed this immensely more than Little Brother. This is a subtler, more nuanced, more complex version of the dystopia Doctorow attempted in his first YA novel.

From the research I've done, I seem to be the only one who didn't enjoy Little Brother, and who found such sweeping issues in that novel. In For The Win, however, I see Doctorow correcting his mistakes from the first novel, and self-consciously attempting to craft his characters more carefully, especially his female characters. There i...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Karen Ball rated it 5 of 5 stars

All around the world, people are playing games, battling for online gold, jewels, points, levels and status. And in poor nations, there are players who play for these treasures, but then their employers trade the virtual gold for real money -- from those who want to pay to skip to higher-level play immediately. This is the story of brilliant Mala in India, Matthew in Shenzen, Leonard (aka Wei-Dong) from California, and Big Sister Nor in rural China, who are all trying to break out of the sweatsh...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Ariel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: phd-exams, radical-politics

I got Cory Doctorow's latest novel, For the Win for Christmas and just finished reading it. Wow, was this book written for me? I've never seen my interest in virtual economies and videogames converge with my participation in labor activism before. In For the Win, set in the near future, goldfarmers (people who harvest virtual currency and sell it to wealthier players for real $$$) and sweatshop factory workers unite across borders to organize for better living and working conditions. This is a g...more I got Cory Doctorow's latest novel, For the Win for Christmas and just finished reading it. Wow, was this book written for me? I've never seen my interest in virtual economies and videogames converge with my participation in labor activism before. In For the Win, set in the near future, goldfarmers (people who harvest virtual currency and sell it to wealthier players for real $$$) and sweatshop factory workers unite across borders to organize for better living and working conditions. This is a great tactic because usually a factory will just move to another country with more lax labor laws when workers organize... well they can't now!

The gamers form the "International Workers of the World Wide Web" or IWWWW nicknamed the Webblies. This is based on the real-life union from the 1910s-1920s called the International Workers of the World or "Wobblies." It's kind of funny because Doctorow explains who the Wobblies were, who Pinkertons were, what scabs are but spends less time explaining gamer terminology. (Funny assumptions about audience--that they'll know about videogames but not labor history.) Doctorow doesn't mention it in the book, but the Wobblies still exist today!

If anyone has read early 1900s labor novels Doctorow is revising the genre in more contemporary times, and that is awesome. Old labor novels might come across as preachy to contemporary audiences, and Doctorow does at times, too. He doesn't hide his politics, and explains everything that is going on in the book pretty directly. This will bug some readers who prefer ambiguity and subtly. But hey, I don't mind--it's part of the genre. I like a little self-indulgence in my science fiction. It's not often I actually get a physical reaction from fiction, but the battles between the cops and the strikers freaked me out and were especially suspenseful. (Maybe I could just relate because I've been attacked by police? On the other hand, I skimmed through the virtual battles because I couldn't relate so much--I haven't played an MMO in years.)

Most of the characters in this book live in China and India. There are lots of female characters who do awesome things. This book passes the Bechdel test left and right.

Disappointments: the characters stress that they don't want to have no bosses, but just a better cut. This was a bit disappointing and not in the spirit of the original Wobblies!

Overall I dug For the Win and appreciate that it brings exciting labor history and organizing tactics to a younger generation. Labor activists could learn from this book because we tend to be oblivious to virtual worlds and economies. (less)

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Dec 04, 2010 JulesQ rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is actually a low 5/10. At first I thought that I didn't like it because it spent too much time talking about the actual gaming and I was going to forgive the book for that, because I'm not a gamer and presumably the 14-year-old boys who read this and ARE gamers will like it.

But the Doctorow got better at describing game play in more accessible terms. But then I didn't like it because I was almost halfway into the book and it was still introducing new main characters. Seriously. And there...more

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Nov 30, 2010 Michael Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Background: After Little Brother, which starts the sub-genre ubertech (subclass of sci-fi), I was really interested in Doctorow's books. I found him in For The Win a much more accomplished writer, with a better storyline and character drawing. I also found myself a bit disappointed---the ubertech edge diminished from Little Brother. The premise of For The Win is that people can achieve tremendous success when acting together. A group of young adults located in all corners of the world---some in...more

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Nov 04, 2010 Aaron added it

Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow once again tries to delve into the world of YA literature with the hopes of appealing to their interest in dystopia to re-evaluate the world in which they live. As with Little Brother, Doctorow makes good use of gaming to try and get their attention (emphasis on the TRY, but more on that later).

The story is uses a series of protagonists from around the world, including China and India and brings them together in a group of online games, or massive multiplayer...more Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow once again tries to delve into the world of YA literature with the hopes of appealing to their interest in dystopia to re-evaluate the world in which they live. As with Little Brother, Doctorow makes good use of gaming to try and get their attention (emphasis on the TRY, but more on that later).

The story is uses a series of protagonists from around the world, including China and India and brings them together in a group of online games, or massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMPORGs). Such games include the popular World of Warcraft, Runescape, Star Trek Online, and any number of other titles that wax and wane in popularity. Rather than utilize those games to appeal to something already with a high level of interest, Doctorow creates his own games, and they are pretty dull sound. I say that as a gamer.

The protagonists expose the readers to the idea of gold-mining, which are basically sweat shops in which they hire young people to "play" the game to build up game money and highly prized tools that can be sold to players across the world for real money. The kids work for little or no money, and get little benefit for the work they are doing. Ironically, in many of the cases, the gaming companies themselves are making the biggest profit on this sort of scheme, but they are not the only people to do it. Using the games themselves, the child slaves and regular gamers start to connect and start a revolt to overthrow the abusive system.

This is actually a real occurrence. I have seen news stories about it in the paper and even on CNN so there is no question that there is a sense of realism to the story. Globalization and fair labor are a major concern in our times so it is not a bad idea to explore the issues in a dystopian novel. Unfortunately, Doctorow does not seem to have the ability to do so without beating the reader to death with the themes.

It is sad, the concept of the story is amazing, but it is totally overwhelmed by accompanying essays relating to globalization, child workers, fair trade, and big business. Instead of the characters telling the story through the actions, everything is described in so much detail that the book quickly becomes torture to read. I am not sure if it is because Doctorow thinks he has to explain everything because teen readers won't understand on their own or he is just overwhelmed by his viewpoint and needs to run on and on, but it will make the story less approachable to most readers, even fans of gaming or dystopians in general. Either way, Doctorow needs to learn the art of storytelling if he wants to be more successful.

If you didn't like Little Brother for this reason, this book is going to be just as problematic. I would say this is one most people can skip.(less)

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Oct 28, 2010 Justin rated it 5 of 5 stars

From Gold farmers to the bosses, virtual economics to the seductions of MMOs, the global socioeconomic virtual force can be learned pleasurably from this page turning tale of Cory Doctorow’s newest book “For the win”.

For The Win is a young adult thriller starring the vast varieties of teenage gaming experts who farm gold for their living. These gold farmers are like labour workers who work for bosses all day long farming gold, but afterwards they realize they have the power to change the whole s...more From Gold farmers to the bosses, virtual economics to the seductions of MMOs, the global socioeconomic virtual force can be learned pleasurably from this page turning tale of Cory Doctorow’s newest book “For the win”.

For The Win is a young adult thriller starring the vast varieties of teenage gaming experts who farm gold for their living. These gold farmers are like labour workers who work for bosses all day long farming gold, but afterwards they realize they have the power to change the whole system. A few of these gold farmers, Matthew, who defied his old boss and made his own team, Leonard an arrogant boy from Los Angeles who quests with the Chinese, Mala, and her army in Dharavi, Yasmin from the slums, Ashok an economics genius, and a couple of Chinese men came together to form a world wide community, with Big Sister Nor as their leader, this community was named the IWWWW(You can call them the Webblies for short). Together in this community they go on strike against the bosses and government who were in charge of them before. With their little picket signs, weapons of the virtual world, will they conquer or be defeated?

Some of the readers may not understand some of Cory Doctorow’s virtual slang but I understand them all, for I myself am also a MMORPG gamer. I have experienced “gold farming” and “raiding” myself and I got to say this, it’s not easy sometimes. Long hours of gaming, keyboard spamming, and when frustration hits you because you can’t clear a certain level you will beg of mercy. This book introduces virtual globilization, economics, union theory, and much more. Doctorow doesn’t just introduce these topics to you, he also teaches you the virtual slang and gives you a visualization of how exciting and intense MMORPG’s really are.

The thing I love about this novel is Doctorow’s unique way of writing. Doctorow separated the life of each and every gold farmer and slowly introduces them while slowly connecting them all together. Doctorow also included many helpful inserts of explaining what some terms meant in case someone didn’t understand.

An excellently written tale that I really enjoyed and if your also an online gamer you’ll enjoy it even more!
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Oct 28, 2010 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars

For the Win, Cory Doctorow's latest novel, is easily the best of his latest works. These three books - Little Brother, Makers, and now For The Win - are all centered around an issue or cause. While all three are engaging explorations of the issues (privacy and freedom, the nature to work, and now, unions and organizing along with the economics of MMORPGs), For the Win easily has the most empathetic and fleshed-out characters of the three.

It is a good story of global organization against seemingl...more

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Oct 25, 2010 Atonement rated it 4 of 5 stars

Virtual dungeons, third world gold farms, human smuggling, universal economic ideas, global unionization with technology; as the reader progresses through Cory Doctorow’s new book “For the Win”, the topics get more and more demanding. For an average book, the themes and ideas, along with the various personalities, settings, cultures, and perspectives would be hard to take in. Good thing “For the Win” is not your average book.

Being an avid Chinese gamer who has experienced firsthand many of th...more Virtual dungeons, third world gold farms, human smuggling, universal economic ideas, global unionization with technology; as the reader progresses through Cory Doctorow’s new book “For the Win”, the topics get more and more demanding. For an average book, the themes and ideas, along with the various personalities, settings, cultures, and perspectives would be hard to take in. Good thing “For the Win” is not your average book.

Being an avid Chinese gamer who has experienced firsthand many of the topics described in this book, I have to give Cory a lot of praise for doing such thorough research on so many subjects and presenting it in such a realistic manner. He uses foreign terms such as “zhengfu” (government) and “agro” (to aggravate a monster in a game so it targets only you while your teammates chop its limbs off) with such fluency combined with regular English it astounds even me, who actually lives these lives he’s trying to create.

Some characters are harsh, stubborn, and realistic to the point where they reflect the harsh brutality of everyday life in the third world countries. Seemingly relatable characters like Wei-Dong, however, are given too much freedom, causing them to be more comparable rather than relatable. Major props to Cory on that too.

Ironically enough though, the book’s biggest downfall was structured within the advice and lessons buried between the sections. “If you have all the money in the world, you can buy the whole world. But what if you printed twice that amount of money? Would you be able to buy two worlds?” This can also be applied to a book’s information. The reader has a set value for all the information; as the book lectures, the value for each individual lesson gets smaller and smaller until it becomes quite insignificant.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the book. Lengthy as it may be, it’s all quality information with superb storytelling. Just watch out Cory. As a little lesson from myself: Too much of anything can be bad for you.
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Oct 21, 2010 Sam Siu is currently reading it

I enjoyed this book a lot, from the first time I started reading it, I had just assumed that it was another rant on video gaming bashing one side or another, not realizing that this was in fact a novel with a lot of (apparently) in-depth research on its topic (such as a liberal use of many internet slangs such as LOL etc). The story, being set in a near futuristic time frame, and being about a topic many teens enjoy, yet still complicated and hard to understand, certainly fulfills any expectatio...more I enjoyed this book a lot, from the first time I started reading it, I had just assumed that it was another rant on video gaming bashing one side or another, not realizing that this was in fact a novel with a lot of (apparently) in-depth research on its topic (such as a liberal use of many internet slangs such as LOL etc). The story, being set in a near futuristic time frame, and being about a topic many teens enjoy, yet still complicated and hard to understand, certainly fulfills any expectations one might have on the novel before reading.
Something I particularly enjoyed when reading this book was the novel incorporating language we use over the internet, and simulating a believable storyline that takes place within a realistic (though highly unlikely) situation: young adults from all over the world grouping up together using the internet to form a union in order to challenge the big businesses Meticulous detail has been put into the editing of the book, choosing (internet appropriate) diction to ensure the syntax flows smoothly, and doesn’t sound too cheesy to read; this topic is one that many would be familiar with, but not necessarily understand in a philosophical way.
I am intrigued and pleased with how the storyline was set, dealing with many protagonists from all over the world; so it is only fitting that Doctorow would shift focus from one character to another. This allows ample room to develop sub-plots and more detail to be allocated to each one (i.e. going through a strike in China, and then changing over to a scene in India). This also allows for multiple perspectives on the grand scheme of things, as different characters are allowed to express their opinions and thoughts.
Something I find quirky was the incorporation of business/economic themes into the book, sometimes through a “lecture” on one subject or another, detaching the book from the storyline for a brief period of time, but helping us understand various ideas we may not understand from inferring. These are often interesting themselves to read, as they themselves are written and worded in a way we can easily understand, without using big, uncouthly words.
In this novel, I cannot really find anything that I don’t like, though that may be because I am merely willing to believe everything that goes down on the page. But everything is true, the good, the informative, and even the bad and ugly points of the novel, which Doctorow does not bother to cull, to show that life isn’t always “fair” or “perfect”. It incorporates many of his own ideals (such as standing by your own principles) through the characters, and makes it all the more believable.
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About Cory Doctorow

Canadian blogger, journalist and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing.

He is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his books.

Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, Disney, and post-scarcity economics.

http://us.macmillan.com ...more

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“He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years.” — 38 people liked it

“It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions.” — 19 people liked it

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