Well-Being and Creative Careers: Interview with Johanna Weststar (IGDA/Western University)
Conversation with Johanna Weststar (Western University) about her game developer satisfaction surveys for the IGDA and the Not All Fun and Games book.
As part of a series of conversations with professionals and scholars in the field of mental health and well-being in media industries and professions, in this episode I sit down with Johanna Weststar, Associate Professor at the DAN Department of Management & Organization Studies of Western University in Ontario, Canada.
In our interview, we focus on her decades long research on and among professionals in the global games industry, working closely with the International Game Developers Association on its benchmark Developer Satisfaction and quality of life surveys. All this work culminated in the open access book Not All Fun and Games: Videogame Labour, Project-based Workplaces, and the New Citizenship at Work (out with Concordia University Press in 2024), co-authored with Marie-Josée Legault.
Applying the notion of citizenship at work, the book covers different ways in which professionals experience, navigate and resist such structural issues in the workplace such as precarity, lack of diversity, unpredictable schedules, unpaid overtime, low unionization rates, stress and burnout, and significant pay inequality.
These interviews in part support the publication of my book (titled: Well-Being and Creative Careers: What Makes You Happy Can Also Make You Sick, out now with Intellect Books) on health, well-being and happiness in media work, and to showcase and celebrate the work so many people around the world are doing to advocate and promote these issues in media workplaces.
For the podcast version of this vlog, please check my Deuzevlog on Spotify.