This paper reports an empirical study of the video game development industry in Sweden. It provides a detailed account on how video game developers legitimize their engagement in video game development in a context of high institutional complexity. The justification theory is utilized as a framework to analyze how actors enact different orders or worth to legitimize their actions to others as well as to themselves. The enrolment of such sometimes contradictory value orders highlights the narrative skills needed to make sense of and explain behaviors and actions within such complex institutional setting. The paper contributes to the institutional theory by bridging it with the French pragmatist sociology through an in-depth study on the micro-level, analyzing how individuals actively deal with institutional complexity in practice.