Abstract
The widespread adoption of the freemium business model together with the introduction of cost-efficient analytics tools have made the use of analytics pervasive in the game industry. While big data and analytics have drawn extensive scholarly attention, the research focusing particularly on game analytics is scant and largely descriptive. Thus, there is a need for research focusing on how game companies employ analytics. In this study, we analyze data collected through a set of in-depth interviews of small and medium-sized freemium game developers. We identify four main roles of game analytics: 1) sense-making device, 2) decision-support system, 3) communication tool, and 4) hygiene factor. We employ the attention-based view of the firm to discuss how these roles diverge and converge in terms of organizational attention. The study advances the research on the roles and business value of analytics in the game and software industry.
Highlights
Video game development has grown into a major global industry and source of economic growth in a number of countries
This study focuses on the use of big data and analytics in the games industry in freemium game development
Four aggregate themes portraying different uses of game analytics emerged as a result of the analysis
Summary
Video game development has grown into a major global industry and source of economic growth in a number of countries. Against this backdrop, this study focuses on the use of big data and analytics in the games industry in freemium game development. The video game industry is transferring from a product-based business logic towards software-as-a-service (SAAS) business logic, referred to as game-as-a-service (GAAS) (Clark 2014) This means continually developing and optimizing the game to maximize its revenues based on the data obtained from players’ behaviors. In the freemium business model, a basic or downgraded version of the service is offered free of charge; users who wish to access more features can purchase a premium version (Anderson, 2009; Liu et al 2015). In the flexible freemium model, there are multiple premium versions and the consumer can switch back to the free basic version at any time (Shi et al 2015)
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