scholarly journals The Industry of Landlords: Exploring the Assetization of the Triple-A Game

2021 ◽  
pp. 155541202110141
Author(s):  
Alexander Bernevega ◽  
Alex Gekker
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Distribution Strategy ◽  
Service Distribution ◽  
Revenue Models ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Cultural Commodity ◽  
Political Economic

The monetization of the modern Triple-A game has undergone severe changes, as free-to-play revenue models and game as a service distribution strategy have become standard for game developers. To date, the established tradition of the industry’s political–economic analysis focused on the value extraction and user exploitation of video game as a cultural commodity, centered on the video game as generating value through the selling of boxed or digital units. In this article, we present a new analytical framework grounded in understanding the modern video game as an asset that continuously generates revenue for its owners. This theoretical lens encapsulates the changes in contemporary game development, distribution, and value generation. To demonstrate, we apply it to the analysis of the monetization strategies of three recent free-to-play Triple-A titles: Fortnite (2017), Apex Legends (2019), and Call of Duty: Warzone (2020).

scholarly journals The perils of project-based work: Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development

Organization ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Peticca-Harris ◽  
Johanna Weststar ◽  
Steve McKenna
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Video Game Development ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Reader Comments ◽  
Game Developers

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or ‘crunch’ to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme.

scholarly journals The everyday lives of video game developers: Experimentally understanding underlying systems/structures

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Daily Activity ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Collaborative Practice ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Video Game Development ◽  
Game Developers

This essay examines how tensions between work and play for video game developers shape the worlds they create. The worlds of game developers, whose daily activity is linked to larger systems of experimentation and technoscientific practice, provide insights that transcend video game development work. The essay draws on ethnographic material from over 3 years of fieldwork with video game developers in the United States and India. It develops the notion of creative collaborative practice based on work in the fields of science and technology studies, game studies, and media studies. The importance of, the desire for, or the drive to understand underlying systems and structures has become fundamental to creative collaborative practice. I argue that the daily activity of game development embodies skills fundamental to creative collaborative practice and that these capabilities represent fundamental aspects of critical thought. Simultaneously, numerous interests have begun to intervene in ways that endanger these foundations of creative collaborative practice.

scholarly journals Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Ethics Applied to Video Game Business

2019 ◽  
Vol 167 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tuomas Harviainen ◽  
Janne Paavilainen ◽  
Elina Koskinen
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Online Business ◽  
Game Developers

AbstractThis article analyzes the business ethics of digital games, using Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. It identifies different types of monetization options as virtuous or nonvirtuous, based on Rand’s views on rational self-interest. It divides the options into ethical Mover and unethical Looter designs, presents those logics in relation to an illustrative case example, Zynga, and then discusses a view on the role of players in relation to game monetization designs. Through our analysis of monetization options in the context of Objectivist ethics, the article contributes to discussions on game revenue ethics. It also expands the still understudied area of applying Rand’s ethics to business, in the context of a new sector, game development, and business. This research enables ethicists to apply a wider-than-before perspective on virtue ethics to online business, and helps game developers act in a virtuous manner, which provides them with a long-term business advantage.

EXPLORATION VS. EXPLOITATION AND HOW VIDEO GAME DEVELOPERS ARE ABLE TO COMBINE THE TWO

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (06) ◽  
pp. 1650045
Author(s):  
BJÖRN REMNELAND WIKHAMN ◽  
ALEXANDER STYHRE ◽  
JAN LJUNGBERG ◽  
ANNA MARIA SZCZEPANSKA
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Video Game Industry ◽  
Video Game Development ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Suitable Case

This paper reports an in-depth qualitative study about innovation work in the Swedish video game industry. More specifically, it focuses on how video game developers are building ambidextrous capabilities to simultaneously addressing explorative and exploitative activities. The Swedish video game industry is a particularly suitable case to analyze ambidexterity, due to it’s extreme market success and continuous ability to adapt to shifts in technologies and demands. Based on the empirical data, three ambidextrous capabilities are pointed out as particularly valuable for video game developers; (1) the ability to separate between a creative work climate and the effectiveness in project organizing; (2) the balancing of inward and outward ideation influences, and (3) the diversity in operational means and knowledge paired with shared goals and motivations, derived from the love of video games and video game development.

scholarly journals An Approach to Accessible Serious Games for People with Dyslexia

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2507
Author(s):  
Angel Jaramillo-Alcázar ◽  
Eduardo Venegas ◽  
Santiago Criollo-C ◽  
Sergio Luján-Mora
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Cognitive Disorder ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Development Method ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
The One ◽  
Game Developers

Dyslexia is a cognitive disorder that affects the evolutionary ability to read, write, and speak in people, affecting the correct learning of a large percentage of the population worldwide. In fact, incorrect learning is caused because the educational system does not take into consideration the accessibility parameters that people with dyslexia need to maintain a sustainable educational level equal to others. Moreover, the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, has been deployed in education programs, offering many benefits; however, the lack of accessibility of those devices creates new barriers to students with dyslexia that hinder their education. With the aim of reducing these barriers, this paper presents an approach to the development of accessible serious games games for children with dyslexia. As a case study, a serious game based on a previously proposed serious game development method and a new set of accessibility guidelines for people with dyslexia is presented. The main purpose of the serious video game is to improve the treatment of dyslexia, through the collection of data obtained from two puzzles designed to train certain cognitive areas that affect this disability. This article has a double contribution: on the one hand, the guidelines and the method that can help video game developers and therapists to develop accessible serious games for people with dyslexia and, on the other hand, the two specific serious games that can be used by therapists, family members and people with dyslexia themselves.

scholarly journals Towards a “Filipino” Video Game: Teaching Filipino Culture and Identity for Video Game Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoffer Mitch C. Cerda
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Video Game Development ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Filipino Culture ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Game Developers

This paper uses the author’s experiences of teaching the Filipino module of a multidisciplinary video game development class as a case study in teaching Filipino culture and identity as an element of video game development. A preliminary definition of “Filipino video game” as having Filipino narratives and subject matter, made by Filipino video game developers, and catering to a Filipino audience, is proposed. The realities and limitations of video game development and the video game market in the Philippines is also discussed to show how the dominance of Western video game industry, in terms of the dominance of outsource work for Filipino video game developers and the dominance of non-Filipino video games played by Filipino players, has hindered the development of original Filipino video games. Using four Filipino video games as primary texts discussed in class, students were exposed to Filipinomade video games, and shown how these games use Filipino history, culture, and politics as source material for their narrative and design. Issues of how video games can be used to selfexoticization, and the use of propaganda is discussed, and also how video games can be used to confront and reimagine Filipinoness. The paper ends with a discussion of a student-made game titled Alibatas, a game that aims to teach baybayin, a neglected native writing system in the Philippines as a demonstration of how students can make a Filipino video game. The paper then shows the importance of student-made games, and the role that the academe plays in the critical understanding of Filipino video games, and in defining Filipino culture and identity.

scholarly journals Current Revenue (Monetisation) Models of Video Gamę Developers

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Patrycja Klimas
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Business Practice ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Global Business ◽  
Revenue Model ◽  
Revenue Streams ◽  
Revenue Models ◽  
Game Developers

This paper aims at exploration of revenue models and recognition of revenue streams currently exploited by video gamę developers. The fact that the monetisation models are fastchanging and expanding in business practice, but fragmentary researched in management science makes them worth consideration. Therefore, different revenue models have beenidentified and discussed in the light of the results of desk (literaturę and industry reports review supported by analysis of evidence from global business practice) and field research(semi-structured interviews with Polish video gamę developers). Using triangulated data it was possible to identify: (1) four revenue models aimed at selling paid games: paid gamę fororder, premium, paid mobile, and subscription; (2) one revenue model aimed at selling free games: freemium; and (3) one revenue model aimed at selling intellectual property rights:licensing. In a morę detailed perspective, six different revenue models and nine different revenue streams exploited under these revenue models have been revealed and discussed.The main contribution of the article is the recognition of a wide portfolio of revenue streams and revenue models possible to consider by video gamę developers during decision makingprocess on the structure of their revenue logie. Additional, theoretical and managerial implications are as follows: development of generał framework of the revenue logie beingintegral part of business models, Identification of currently used revenue models by video gamę developers which have been overlooked in prior literaturę (e.g. selling customised games for order or licensing parts of gamę content or gamę components).

scholarly journals Games-as-a-service: Conflicted identities on the new front-line of video game development

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482199581
Author(s):  
Louis-Etienne Dubois ◽  
Johanna Weststar
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Service Workers ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Video Game Development ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Occupational Communities

As creative industries begin to experiment with service and subscriptions models, prior research suggests that such changes in production and consumption carry important implications for workers. Using the theoretical lens of occupational communities, this empirical study investigates the impact of servitization—that is, the transition from a product to a service-dominant logic—on the identity of video game developers. It theorizes that service workers’ skills and mind-set, relationships with peers and players, internal and external reputation, as well as development principles and values all experience disruptions, leading to the emergence of a distinct identity.

Masculine Pleasures as Normalized Practices: Character Design in the Video Game Industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 155541202110347
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Tompkins ◽  
Nicole Martins
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New Media ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Video Game Industry ◽  
Character Design ◽  
Game Engines ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Game Developers

Scholars have extensively studied video game labor practices (e.g., Bulut, E. (2015). Glamor above, precarity below: Immaterial labor in the video game industry. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 32(3), 193-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2015.1047880 , Bulut, E. (2020). White masculinity, creative desires, and production ideology in video game development. Games and Culture, 16, 1555412020939873; Banks, J. (2013). Co-creating videogames. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing; Kerr, A. (2010). The culture of gamework. In M. Deuze (Ed), Managing Media Work (pp. 225-236). London: Sage; O’Donnell (2009). The everyday lives of video game developers: Experimentally understanding underlying systems/structures. Transformative Works and Cultures, 2. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0073 , O’Donnell (2014). Developer’s dilemma: The secret world of videogame creators. Cambridge, MA: MIT press; Johnson, R. S. (2013). Toward greater production diversity. Games and Culture, 8(136), 136-160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412013481848 , Johnson, R. (2014). Hiding in plain sight: Reproducing masculine culture at a video game studio. Communication, Culture & Critique, 7, 578-594. https://doi.org/10.1111/cccr.12023 ); yet, few have exclusively examined the process of character design (e.g., Srauy, S. (2017). Professional norms and race in the North American video game industry. Games and Culture, 14, 478-497. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412017708936 ). Using a grounded theory analysis of 19 interviews with games designers and developers, this work complements existing research with insights on how gender and gendered interactions, technologies, audiences, market logics, and corporate culture integrate and influence character design practices. We found that technological affordances (e.g., game engines and related software; see Whitson, J. R. (2018). Voodoo software and boundary objects in game development: How developers collaborate and conflict with game engines and art tools. New Media & Society, 20, 2315-2332) converged with the masculine, heteronormative identities of game developers to shape normalized valued practices for character design, resulting in formulaic tropes that generally appealed to a masculine audience. Changes in status quo character design were attributed to diversity-conscious individuals, who operated within organizational practices privileging proven formulas over innovative designs.

scholarly journals More Than One Flop from Bankruptcy : Rethinking Sustainable Independent Game Development

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Banks ◽  
Brendan Keogh
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
New Generation

Since the mid-2000s saw runaway videogame successes created beyond the traditional studio paradigm, ‘indie games’ have received increased attention from distributors, console manufactures, documentary makers, festival organizers, and, crucially, a new generation of game makers looking for alternative career trajectories. However, very few indie games are commercially successful, and even fewer are followed up with a second commercial success. In this chapter, we draw from ethnographic research with Australian video game developers to unpack the myriad challenges indie game developers grapple with as they strive for sustainability. Many developers, despite deploying the language of tech start-up culture, were less interested in ‘growth’ and ‘profit’ than they were in simply being able to keep the team together to make the next game.

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