Video Game Industry as a Social Network

Abstract

The video game market is a complex system where the relationships between game titles and publishers is convoluted. While some publishers are responsible for a large number of titles others seem to be less successful. In an attempt to understand the characteristics and evolution of the video game industry, we analyze the market using social network analysis. For this purpose, we build a heterogenous network of the video game industry at different levels. Moreover, to interpret the behavior of the generations of game consoles, we build these networks for each console, i.e., PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, and analyze the three generations they went through. We perform a comparative temporal analysis of the evolution of the industry by investigating 14 video game consoles as five generations. Finally, we try to provide insights and future directions regarding the video game market.