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Title details for For the Win by Cory Doctorow - Available

For the Win

by Cory Doctorow
George Newbern
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
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, millions of “gold farmers” toil in electronic sweatshops harvesting virtual treasure that their employers sell to First World gamers for real money.
           
Mala is a brilliant fifteen-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the nickname “General Robotwalla.” In China, Matthew defies his former bosses to build his own gold-farming crew. Leonard lives in Southern California and spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia. All of these young people, and more, become entangled with the mysterious woman called Big Sister Nor, who builds them into a movement to challenge the status quo.
           
Fighting pitched battles in the virtual worlds of every MMORPG worth playing, Nor’s network of gamers is so successful that it incurs ruthless opposition. Ultimately, Big Sister’s people devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once—a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant hack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 11, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780307710727
      • File size: 476025 KB
      • Duration: 16:31:43

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 6.9
    • Lexile® Measure: 1070
    • Interest Level: 9-12(UG)
    • Text Difficulty: 6-9

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Millions of young people in countries like China, India, and Singapore make fortunes for owners of online games by trolling for troublemakers. They also make millions for unscrupulous schemers who turn "gold" harvested from the games into real-world cash. With an amazingly sympathetic voice, George Newbern breathes life into these teenagers in a fantastic novel of revolution. A charismatic woman called Big Sister Nor convinces the gamers to form a worldwide union and demand living wages. It's when she calls a strike that the worlds of the Web and real life clash. Sometimes jarring changes of time and place are tricky to follow on audio without distinct chapter breaks. However, Newbern keeps listeners hanging onto every word as he builds a powerful story. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 19, 2010
      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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:6.9
  • Lexile® Measure:1070
  • Interest Level:9-12(UG)
  • Text Difficulty:6-9

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