For the Win

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More About This Book

Overview

It’s the twenty-first century, and all over the world, MMORPGs are big business. Hidden away in China and elsewhere, young players are pressed into working as “gold-farmers,” amassing game-wealth that’s sold to Western players at a profitable markup. Some of these pieceworkers rebel, trying to go into business for themselves—but there’s little to stop their bosses from dragging them back into servitude. Some of them, like young Mala in the slums of Bombay—nicknamed “General Robotwallah” for her self-taught military skill—become enforcers for the bosses, but that only buys them so much.

All the way over in L.A., young Wei-Dong, obsessed with Asian youth culture and MMORPGs, knows the system is rigged, knows that kids everywhere are being exploited. Finally, he and his Asian counterparts begin to work together to claim their rights. Under the noses of the ruling elites, they fight the bosses, the game owners and the rich speculators, outsmarting them with their street-gaming skills. But soon the battle will spill over from the virtual world to the real one, leaving the young rebels fighting not just for their rights, but for their lives….

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Doctorow uses video games to get teenage readers to think more about globalization, economics, and fair labor practices in this expansive but ponderous story. Set, like his earlier Little Brother, in a near-future world, it centers on attempts to unionize teenagers who work within massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) as gold farmers, employed to raise game gold and find magic items to be resold, or as Turks, who help police the virtual environments. Employed for minimal wages under horrible working conditions—sometimes in near slavery—these children, led by a global group of fierce and talented gamers, band together, subverting the MMORPGs to take on their corrupt local bosses and the corporations that own the games. As usual, Doctorow writes with authority and a knack for authentic details and lexicon, moving between impoverished villages in China and India and inventive video game worlds. But the story founders under the volume of information he's trying to share—the action is interrupted by lectures on economic principles, sometimes disguised as conversations—and an unwieldy cast of characters. It's undeniably smart and timely, but would have benefited from tighter editing. Ages 12-up. (May)
Children's Literature
To Mala's impoverished family in India, she is the primary breadwinner; however, to her army, she is General Robotwallah, a fearless leader in virtual battles. In China, Matthew Fong can play eight simultaneous games of Svartalfheim Warriors and can run and map the rooms of any game with lightning speed. American teen Leonard, who goes by the name Wei-Dong and plays online in the wee hours of the morning with a guild of Chinese gamers, has parents who think he is addicted to playing and who are determined to rescue him by sending him to military school. These three main characters and many more are connected in the virtual worlds created by mega-corporations. They find the lines between the physical world and their virtual world blurred by economics, greed, power, and very real violence. Divided into three sections, the book draws in readers with fast-paced action, sensory details that bring each unique setting and character to life, and enough emotion to sustain the explanations of how the games function and their relation to corporate economics. The uniting factor of the three initial protagonists is Big Sister Nor, the mysterious figure who becomes the leader of an international effort to unionize the workers who form the foundation of the global gaming enterprise. The rationale is explained: "As hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing." With a huge cast, complex plot, political undertones, and challenging economic concepts, this ambitious and lengthy novel requires the type of sustained attention most teens are thought to lack, but the quality will be found in Doctorow fans, gamers, and those fascinated by intelligent predictions of the near future. Reviewer: Keri Collins Lewis
More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews
School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up—In a story (Tor Teen, 2010) that explodes with life, Cory Doctorow invites us into the world of teenage video gamers who hail from India, China, and Southern California. Each character struggles to make a living via gaming and gold-farming, escaping the wrath of predatory adults who capitalize on the young people's online agility. Around every corner, they meet actual and virtual danger. These characters exist in a dizzyingly complex world, yet each interwoven tale describes an age-old story of forging identity, standing up for oneself, and eventually leaving home. Most affecting is Mala, who lives beside a plastics recycling plant in India, and escapes the powerlessness of poverty through gaming. All the characters are brought together by Big Sister Nor, an online presence who haunts and captivates—and invites them to reexamine the meaning of online labor. George Newbern's narration is perfunctory, with a reserved tone that seems too detached for such an exuberant story. He changes voices for some characters, but not others, and his Indian and Chinese accents and female falsettos will often make listeners cringe. In a book filled with so many culturally diverse characters, the narrator should have had more lingual versatility. The absence of music is also a missed opportunity. A snatch of melody from the character's culture could have signaled point of view shifts. And the sounds of the games, which Doctorow describes so vividly, would have also made for a livelier listening experience. The tech-savvy teens who would be drawn to this story would crave more stimulation than this audiobook offers.—Jess deCourcy Hinds, Bard High School Early College Queens, Long Island City, NY
Kirkus Reviews
In a future so close it will be easily mistaken for today, teens all over the world play massively multiplayer online role-playing games, but not all are in the game for fun. In the Third World, the poorest children and teens "farm gold" for ruthless bosses who turn game currency into real-world money. The in-game economies of games like Mushroom Kingdom from Nintendo and Zombie Mecha by Coca-Cola Games rival those of Peru and Portugal. Big Sister Nor in Singapore and a small army of followers slowly and secretly recruit the best players into a fledgling union that could span the globe if it's not destroyed by corporations, corrupt police or repressive governments. Award-winner Doctorow spins a mammoth tale that, when in gear, is as engaging and fascinating as any MMORPG. Unfortunately, it is shot through with economics lectures; regularly, the focus shifts from the large cast of characters to a gentle exposition on union history or social contracts or some other complex economic idea. Fans, future bankers and future gametechs will be in heaven; those without interest will skim or give up by the halfway mark. (Science fiction. YA)

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780765322166
  • Publisher: Doherty, Tom Associates, LLC
  • Publication date: 5/11/2010
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 480
  • Sales rank: 122,146
  • Age range: 13 - 18 Years
  • Lexile: 1070L (what's this?)
  • Product dimensions: 6.42 (w) x 8.60 (h) x 1.54 (d)

Meet the Author

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow

CORY DOCTOROW is a coeditor of Boing Boing and a columnist for multiple publications including the Guardian, Locus, and Publishers Weekly. He was named one of the Web’s twenty-five influencers by Forbes magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. His award-winning novel Little Brother was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 30 )

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 30 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted March 28, 2012

    Economics textbook with a plot

    Wow... if i wanted an economics textbook, i would buy one. Good plotline, good characters, although they were not developed much. Things worked way to conveiniently, and huge detail was given to unimportant things while no detail was given to important things. For example, there are some parts of the book that spend pages and pages explaining tons of economic principles, but when they talk about putting major plans in action, getting fake id's, sneaking accross an entire ocean, or setting a background, there is very little. I might be being a little harsh, but i just couldnt get over the book spending a good chunk of its pages poorly explaining economics at a 7th grade level and that things were so easy and convienent for the characters.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 8, 2011

    I Also Recommend:

    9780061474101 9780765323118

    Awesome

    There are so many things to say about this book - it combines all of the things that made one of Doctorow's earlier books (Little Brother) great, and throws in some economics, a gritty world, awesome characters, and a well thought out plot. The only way this book could be better would be if it was free. Which it is. Just go over to his site, and download the PDF or .txt file. It really isn't that hard to put it on your nook. Overall, one of the best books I've read in the last few years.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted September 15, 2011

    A

    A

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 27, 2010

    I Also Recommend:

    9780060512804

    How did Econ101 become so interesting?

    While one learns something from every Doctorow book, with their forecasts for the culture we'll be living in within five years, For The Win is intended to be educational. Doctorow makes the medicine go down a little easier by wrapping a valuable economics lesson inside a thrilling story. It's not without its rough spots: when the characters, or even the narrator, pause to directly lecture about economics the book drags, but this only happens a couple times and only for a few pages each. The rest of the book is a tense, action-packed story of brave workers fighting, both physically and in-game, to win their worker's rights. It's a book that you'll accidentally finish in one or two sittings, and how many economics books can you say that about?

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