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In an industry defined by million-dollar budgets, multinational corporations and enormous development teams, commissioning a video game for just five dollars (well, CA$6.60) may seem a bit surreal.

Yet, if you log onto – one of the world’s largest gig economy platforms – you can find countless sellers offering game development services at prices well below even the most unambitious indie budget.

While the graphics and mechanics of these games may be limited in scope, they are nonetheless playable – and, as several , they can be surprisingly fun.

Gig labour is a growing economic trend in which short-term contracts replace traditional full-time employment – .

Platforms like Fiverr, and foster the growth of gig work by acting as digital intermediaries between buyers and sellers, facilitating transactions across industries and regions while taking a healthy cut for themselves.

For gig workers, these sites are battlegrounds where increased competition has created a ” ” where prices – and, by extension, wages – are driven down.

. We reviewed a number of seller profiles to see what services were available, how much they cost and who was making them. Through this work, we learned that gig economy game development varies greatly from the industry’s expected norms, and that Fiverr’s ostensibly global workforce is actually quite concentrated.

Games, outsourcing and gigs

The video game industry has long been known for , and . These issues hit a fever pitch in the .

While gig labour is not often brought into discussions about issues in the gaming industry, it highlights a tension between the corporate drive for cheap labour and the increasing precarity of game workers.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that video games are now a staple on gig platforms. and .

As part of these trends, with the aim of showcasing development services ranging from writing to level design.

Gig platforms like Fiverr mirror many aspects of , albeit on a smaller scale. , gig platforms let anyone opt-in to this labour arrangement as a buyer or seller.

The result is a shockingly inexpensive game development ecosystem. In our searches through the platform, we found we could spend $400 on a custom game or pay $5 to have new art swapped into an existing template.

We also noticed that, no matter the service, every seller was pushing for more. Tiered packages and jack-of-all-trades mentalities dominate the platform, with a strong emphasis on upsells and quick turnarounds.

Regional concentration

As we sifted through our findings, we were struck by how similar seller profiles were to one another. Most of Fiverr’s game developers offered comparable services and, despite promoting the lifestyle of an in their public-facing materials, the vast majority of our sellers were situated in Pakistan.

This concentration of labour is not surprising.

Likely in response to this disparity, and pushing participants into the freelance economy. Through this program, sellers are trained specifically to work on gig platforms, where they can make money and build portfolios that might lead them to better future job prospects.

Meanwhile, buyers are more than happy to take advantage of prices well below what they might expect in western countries.

A warning for the industry

While you won’t find the next or on Fiverr, the paltform offers a glimpse into the rapidly evolving games industry. Based on the videos and screenshots we documented, the games created on Fiverr tend to be relatively straightforward, often bearing similarities to titles in the mobile games space.

For most developers on Fiverr, creating the next hit game – often the aspiration of indie developers – isn’t the primary objective. Instead, they focus on delivering affordable, functional products tailored to client needs.

Some of the most successful game developers on Fiverr mentioned having worked with clients ranging from MSI Gaming to Gulf Oil. While we may never know precisely what these corporate relationships are like,

Just as companies have turned to AI to , gig labour has emerged as another cost-cutting solution, reducing the need for stable labour arrangements. This is, in part, why there is a .

It may be tempting to dismiss Fiverr’s games as simple gimmicks or knock-offs, but they cannot be separated from the industry at-large. If anything, the platform’s low price points and exhausting production pace should be heeded as a bellwether for declining industry standards: a lack of job security, a focus on speed and cost over creativity, and an outsourcing of game production both through emerging tech and alternate labour markets.