The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics

The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics
Author: Casey B. Hart
Publisher: Studies in New Media
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2017
Genre: Video games
ISBN: 9781498543415

This book examines how the video game industry's economic strategies have changed over the past decade (2006-2016) from a media effects and game design perspective. It also features discussions and analyses on the social impact of these changes and how consumers have reacted to evolving marketing and design strategies.

The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics

The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics
Author: Casey B. Hart
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2017-07-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498543421

Today, consumers of video games spend over $22.4 billion each year; using more complex and multi-layered strategies, game developers attempt to extend the profitability of their products from a simple one-time sale, to continuous engagement with the consumer. The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics examines paradigmatic changes in the economic structure of the video game industry from a media effects and game design perspective. This book explores how game developers have changed how they engage players in order to facilitate continuous financial transactions. Contributors look from the advent of microtransactions and downloadable content (DLCs) to the impact of planned obsolescence, impulse buying, and emotional control. This collection takes a broad view of the game dynamics and market forces that drive the video game industry, and features international contributors from Asia, Europe, and Australia.

The Invisible Hand in Virtual Worlds

The Invisible Hand in Virtual Worlds
Author: Matthew McCaffrey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2022-02-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108839711

Studies the economic order that governs virtual worlds and ways individuals work together to govern social relations in the digital space.

Franchise Era

Franchise Era
Author: Fleury James Fleury
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-04-01
Genre: Digital media
ISBN: 1474419232

As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. This edited collection, from a range of international scholars, argues that the franchise is now an integral element of American media culture. As such, the collection explores the production, distribution and marketing of franchises as a historical form of media-making - analysing the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms. Examining how traditional media incumbents like studios and networks have responded to the rise of new entrants from the technology sector (such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), the authors take a critical look at the way new and old industrial logics collide in an increasingly fragmented and consolidated mediascape.

The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader

The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader
Author: Mark R. Johnson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 1501347268

Casino games and traditional card games have rich and idiosyncratic histories, complex subcultures and player practices, and facilitate the flow of billions of dollars each year through casinos and card rooms, and between professional players and amateurs. They have nevertheless been overlooked by game scholars due to the negative ethical weight of “gambling” – with such games pathologized and labelled as deviance or mental illness, few look beyond to unpick the games, their players, and their communities. The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader offers 25 chapters studying the communities playing these games, the distinctive cultures and practices that have emerged around them, their activities and beliefs and interpersonal relationships, and how these games influence – both positively and negatively – the lives and careers of millions of game players around the world. It is the first of a new series of edited collections, Play Beyond the Computer, dedicated to exploring the play of games beyond computers and games consoles.

Games Girls Play

Games Girls Play
Author: Carolyn M. Cunningham
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2020-07-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498554571

Games Girls Play examines the role that video games play in girls’ lives, including how games structure girls’ leisure time, how playing video games constitutes different performances of femininity, and what influences girls to play or not play video games. Through interviews, focus groups, and qualitative content analyses, this book analyzes girls’ involvement with video games. It also examines different contexts in which discourses of girls and video games occur, including girl-oriented video games, activist efforts to change the video game industry, and informal education programs that teach girls video game design.

Overcoming the Exploitation of Passion in Videogame Labor

Overcoming the Exploitation of Passion in Videogame Labor
Author: Joshua Jackson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2023-02-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1666915262

Overcoming the Exploitation of Passion in Videogame Labor: Playing with Passion examines the intersection of passion, precarity, and collocation to pinpoint where and how interventions can be made towards better working conditions. Jackson contends that videogames and passion are inextricably linked and explores this intrinsic link where passion is expected and valorized, be it in the context of play, work, or culture. Passion, Jackson argues, is the connective tissue that sews together the shared experiences that people all over the world will undertake through videogames, including winning close matches, experiencing new worlds, and forging new friendships. This book interrogates the outcomes of labor, videogames, and passion colliding – work and play become inextricably linked, and suddenly a ‘passion for games’ becomes an insistent and expected ‘passion for work.’ This, Jackson ultimately posits, leads to the current reality of much of the videogame production industry, where passion is used as a workplace policing tool and a way to push workers to periods of extended work, or crunch periods. Through theorizations regarding passion, bodies, assembly, and assemblage, this text wrestles with what can be done to manifest real change in the videogame industry. Scholars of media studies, technology, and labor studies will find this book of particular interest.

Digital Technology and Communication Policy in Korea

Digital Technology and Communication Policy in Korea
Author: Chang Yong Son
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2024-08-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1666941522

Digital Technology and Communication Policy in Korea: From Infrastructure to Artificial Intelligence explores the overlap of politics, policy, and digital development in Korea. Despite attention to digital development and its socio-economic effects across the nation, more research must be devoted to studying how Korean communication policymakers and authorities have coped with innovative technologies and a rapidly changing communication landscape. Chang Yong Son argues that communications policymakers must balance regulatory safety and security commitments against the promotion of innovation and growth in the communication market. Scholars of communication, media studies, technology studies, and Asian studies will find this book of particular interest.

Hyper-Exploitation in the Hacker Movement

Hyper-Exploitation in the Hacker Movement
Author: Yılmaz Alışkan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2023-09-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 166691844X

This book explores the capitalist exploitation of digital media where creativity is a fundamental element in the production of digital goods. Yılmaz Alışkan focuses in particular on open-source hardware communities in which hackers give up a considerable amount of free time and labour to produce open technology they are not compensated for.