A Dive Into the State of the Practice of the Brazilian Game Software Ecosystem

Abstract

The software ecosystem strategy dominated the digital games industry. The leading game companies adopted ecosystem dynamics, forcing external actors (or developers) to adapt to a highly competitive scenario. Given the Brazilian digital games industry's growth, this study aims to characterize and understand the game software ecosystem scenario. We conducted an online survey research to identify positives, negatives, and opportunities from different ecosystem actors. The survey received 200 responses from different actors from both industry and academia. Three researchers applied qualitative analysis procedures to extract codes and relationships from the answers. We identify twelve aspects (i.e., network, financial sustainability, market opportunity etc.) and their relationships that describe the Brazilian ecosystem. We also investigated these aspects in three analysis groups (i.e., positives, negatives, and opportunities) and compared them against the Brazilian games censuses. Next, we classified codes based on the software ecosystem dimensions (i.e., technical, business, and social) to point out research needs. The codes' relationships allowed us to understand some concerns about the Brazilian context. The qualitative analysis procedures and the discussion on the software ecosystem dimensions provide an overview of a complex scenario, including a list of aspects to support further academic research and industrial techniques.