Digital Game Industry Research Articles

“Destruction Operation”: Iranian-Made Digital Games of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88)

Abstract The Iranian digital game industry flourished in 2002 as a result of a cultural war with Western game productions. Since then, the Iran–Iraq war (1980–88) has been one of the most significant themes of gaming and game design. These games are used as a visual medium to entertain, educate, and communicate the cultural and ideological values of the war to Iranian youth, who constitute the majority of these games’ enthusiasts. Most war games in Iran were modeled after successful Iranian military operations. They were primarily intended to replace Western war games (e.g., Call of Duty and Battlefield) and to impart a distinct Iranian-Islamic wartime culture. The following discussion revolves around a narratological analysis of four Iranian-made digital games on the Iran–Iraq war. This examines the way in which the design of the various elements—such as event, character, and setting—corresponds to the official discourse on the war.1 The games were selected based mainly on their popularity in society as claimed by the game’s official Web site. These elements play a crucial role in articulating the Iranian-Islamic national identity, which is inextricably bound to Islamic, and particularly Shi‘i, teachings.

The impacts of cultural policy on gaming entrepreneurs in Shanghai: an entrepreneurial ecosystem approach

ABSTRACT China’s cultural policy has been a key driver to the formation and development of the domestic digital game industry. In line with the nationwide promotion of “Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation” since 2015 (He et al., 2019), there has witnessed an increasing emphasis on entrepreneurship in the related cultural policies at the local level, especially in China’s major cities known for high-tech creative clusters. Focusing on the thriving gaming entrepreneurship in Shanghai, this article adopts an entrepreneurial ecosystem approach to examine the under-studied relationship between the creation of gaming ventures and the relevant set of cultural policy. Drawing on 33 gaming entrepreneur interviews complemented by policy content, this article provides rich accounts of how gaming entrepreneurs react to and reflect on the local cultural policy in relation to two key elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem: financial capital availability and support services. The findings shed new light on creative autonomy and cultural policy in China.

ENHANCING EFL ADOLESCENT LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION VIA ONLINE SINGLE PLAYER ROLE-PLAY GAMES

With the booming of digital gaming industry, numerous researchers have placed the focus on the use of online role-play games in language learning. However, the research focus of most prior studies was on the commercially-driven “massive multiplayer online role-play games” in the afterschool settings. The use of online single-player role-play games in the class was less studied. The present study hereby investigated sixty-five eighth graders’ use of one online single-player RPG called OzHigh in vocabulary learning. The participants came from three classes in one public junior high school in central Taiwan. By means of a single group design, the participants underwent the game treatment, pre-test, post-test, delayed post-test, questionnaire, and the semi-structured interview. The results showed that the participants had significant improvement on their vocabulary performance. They also responded positively to their role-play game learning experience. Nevertheless, that did not mean that they held negative attitudes toward the traditional face-to-face method of vocabulary instruction. Instead, they confirmed the positive effects of both instructional methods and were aware of the varied learning purposes of these two methods. It is hoped that the findings of this study shed light on language teachers in their efforts to enhance their students’ vocabulary learning.

The Virtual Killing of Muslims: Digital War Games, Islamophobia, and the Global War on Terror

This article argues that digital war games communicate misleading stereotypes about Muslims that prop up patriarchal militarism and Islamophobia in the context of the US-led Global War on Terror. The article's first section establishes the relevance of the study of digital war games to feminist games studies, feminist international relations, and post-colonial feminism. The second section contextualizes the contemporary production and consumption of digital war games with regard to the “military-digital-games complex” and real and simulated military violence against Muslims, focusing especially on the US military deployment of digital war games to train soldiers to kill in real wars across Muslim majority countries. The third section probes “mythical Muslim” stereotypes in ten popular digital war games released between 2001 and 2012:Conflict: Desert Storm(2002),Conflict: Desert Storm 2(2003),SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs(2002),Full Spectrum Warrior(2004),Close Combat: First to Fight(2005),Battlefield 3(2011),Army of Two(2008),Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare(2007),Medal of Honor(2010), andMedal of Honor: Warfighter(2012). These games immerse players in patriarchal fantasies of “militarized masculinity” and place a “mythical Muslim” before their weaponized gaze to be virtually killed in the name of US and global security. The conclusion discusses the stakes of the stereotyping and othering of Muslims by digital war games, and highlights some challenges to Islamophobia in the digital games industry.

Digital power: Value chain upgrading in an age of digitization

We investigate whether and how digitization may affect the power relationships that constrain the upgrading of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in global value chains (GVCs). Combining GVC literature and Resource Dependency Theory, we examine the three features that shift upgrading constraints: asset-specificity, market disintermediation, and innovation sources. The outcomes of a multiple case study encompassing Brazilian firms intentionally sampled from the Digital Games Industry refine our propositions, leading to the concept of digital power as the potential difference in the power imbalance that a supplier may experience in relation to lead firms when performing similar functions in value chains with different digitization degrees. We contribute to International Business literature regarding the relatively unaddressed effects of digital technologies on power relationships in value chains, and deepen the extant understanding of value chain upgrading as a phenomenon. For practitioners, our results inform ways of benefiting from digital industries.

Local-global design: entrepreneurial ecosystem approach for digital gaming industry

Local-global design: entrepreneurial ecosystem approach for digital gaming industry

Local-global design: entrepreneurial ecosystem approach for digital gaming industry

Local-global design: entrepreneurial ecosystem approach for digital gaming industry

Contextualizing agency in new path development: how system selectivity shapes regional reconfiguration capacity

ABSTRACT This paper examines factors shaping the reconfiguration capacity of regional innovation systems (RISs). ‘System selectivity’ is introduced as a concept to understand how factors such as regional imaginaries, power relations and directionality shape how RIS reconfiguration plays out. A comparative case study illustrates the conceptual arguments, investigating industrial change in two Swedish regions (the automotive industry in West Sweden and the digital games industry in Scania). The findings exemplify the influence of system selectivity on agents’ strategy formulation for RIS reconfiguration and highlight the importance of considering structure–agency dynamics to move beyond a stylized view of enabling or constraining RISs.

The Moral Economy of Micro-Transactions in Digital Games

Abstract In the digital game industry, micro-transactions (MTXs) have been introduced as a new vehicle for profit generation. MTXs are small sum payments for additional virtual content beyond the content players obtain through game-play and progression, which impose new structural limitations and opportunities for game participation on the players. This article explores the perspectives of players on corporate commodification strategies of gameplay. The empirical work consists of semi-structured focus group interviews of players and interviews of podcast hosts. All informants are players of various online games. By adopting Sayer’s (2004, 2007, 2017) concept of moral economy and de Certeau’s (2011) concept of tactics in everyday life, this study draws two conclusions. First, virtual items and goods obtained through in-game activities or MTXs are a means to communicate skill level, taste, and experience between players as a fundamental part of the moral economy of establishing fair ground for competition. With regard to MTXs, players distinguish among three levels in which agency is maintained or limited. Second, players negotiate these models of commodification and agency limitation in ambivalent ways, both resisting and embracing economic values in the moral economy of play. Furthermore, because of this negotiation, players are generally concerned about the invasive nature of economic values taking priority over the values that guide the practices of play. In other words, there is a moral concern regarding how norms and values in play are compromised or overridden by outside economic pressures.

Exploring the Effect of In-Game Purchases on Mobile Game Use with Smartphone Trace Data

Microtransactions have become an integral part of the digital game industry. This has spurred researchers to explore the effects of this monetization strategy on players’ game enjoyment and intention to continue using the game. Hitherto, these relationships were exclusively investigated using cross-sectional survey designs. However, self-report measures tend to be only mildly correlated with actual media consumption. Moreover, cross-sectional designs do not allow for a detailed investigation into the temporal dimension of these associations. To address these issues, the current study leverages smartphone trace data to explore the longitudinal effect of in-game purchase behavior on continual mobile game use. In total, approximately 100,000 hours of mobile game activity among 6,340 subjects were analyzed. A Cox regression with time-dependent covariates was performed to examine whether performing in-game purchases affects the risk of players removing the game app from their repertoire. Results show that making an in-game purchase decreases this risk initially, prolonging the survival time of the mobile gaming app. However, this effect significantly changes over time. After the first three weeks, a reversal effect is found where previous in-game purchase behavior negatively affects the further survival of the game. Thus, mobile games without previous monetary investment are more prone to long-term continual game use if they survive the first initial weeks. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed. As such, the current study adds to those studies that use computational methods within a traditional inferential framework to aid theory-driven inquiries.

Fragmented industrial structure and fragmented resistance in Korea’s digital game industry

This article is part of the special issue Creative Labor in East Asia. By exploring specific politico-economic and institutional, conditions promoting actually existing precarity in Korean digital game labor, this study aims to examine how the industrial and institutional conditions of precarity affect digital game workers’ subjectivity. Under this theoretical and empirical consideration, the study first delineates how the rapid industrial transition to the mobile game market happens in relation to the Korean government’s deregulation policy on that particular market. It then scrutinizes the ways in which this industrial shift deepens labor precarity, promotes degradation of skills, and ultimately fragments workers in the digital game industry. Based on this structural analysis, it argues that the fragmented industrial structure of the digital game industry in Korea not only actually fosters contrasting labor subjectivities but also promotes fragmented resistances among Korean digital game workers. By critically evaluating both possibilities and limitations of the recent firm-centered union movements created by digital game workers, the study ultimately concludes that finding a way to connect organized unions to unorganized freelance workers is absolutely necessary to actually transform “precarity” into “solidarity.”

Social capital and financial capital acquisition: creating gaming ventures in Shanghai’s entrepreneurial ecosystem

Entrepreneurs have been a driving force in the rapid development of the Chinese digital game industry. However, in previous studies, little attention has been paid to entrepreneurs’ business development and performance, especially the ways in which they obtain key resources in the process of venture creation. Because most gaming entrepreneurs in China have wrestled with fundraising difficulties in recent years, this study was conducted to examine how gaming entrepreneurs acquire financial capital from a social capital perspective. Data were collected from 33 in-depth interviews with gaming entrepreneurs who were operating ventures in Shanghai, one of China’s major game industry hubs. The data included detailed accounts of the acquisition of financial capital in relation to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem’s four capital providers: business angels, venture capitalists, incubators/accelerators, and government funding agencies. The findings showed that the gaming entrepreneurs in this study used diverse patterns of social capital access and mobilization to acquire financial capital. The findings also showed how the entrepreneurs had adjusted their social capital use in response to the worsening financial market. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on the Chinese digital game industry by articulating how gaming entrepreneurs leverage social resources to enact venture creation.

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN EDUCATIONAL DIGITAL GAME BASED ON MATHEMATICS COURSE TRANSFORMATION GEOMETRY

The digital gaming industry is growing rapidly both economically and in terms of the masses it is influencing. This growth in the sector makes digital games effective in culture and education. In order to use this effect in a beneficial way, it is necessary to be included in the sector. In this research, 8th grade mathematics curriculum a game called “Simetri” has been developed for the purpose of reinforcing the acquisitions of the transformation Geometry subject. The works and processes performed during the development are discussed in this article. The basic structure of the game; it is based on the process of automatically generating the image after the correct clicking of the corners of the image which will result from the reflection of the polygons drawn on the squared paper, dot paper and the coordinate plane with respect to the determined axis of symmetry. There are different difficulty stages within the game and separate levels within these stages. There is also a scoring system in the game and new records are kept. Although the game is mainly based on the concept of reflection, it is open to further development of the concept of translation and the solution of more complex problems.

What’s your game? Passion and precariousness in the digital game industry from a gameworker’s perspective

The video game industry is a paradigmatic context of new media labour that includes a great diversity of professionals, technologies and sources of funding distributed in complex transnational networks in constant flux. This study seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the organisational structures of the production, distribution and consumption of video games by highlighting the experiences and perspectives of the professionals working in its creation. Using a qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews, we study the current situation of gameworkers in Spain paying attention to the development of their professional careers in an increasingly globalised, co-creative and delocalised media industry. Among other results, we discuss the lack of specific training, the assertion of their co-creative status and the need to document working dynamics that currently remain invisibilised.

Challenges of building entrepreneurial ecosystems in peripheral places

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate challenges of building entrepreneurial ecosystems in peripheral places. The entrepreneurial ecosystem concept is developing a rising popularity among both academics and policymakers in recent years where much of the attention has been put in major urban cities. However, on the way to achieve balanced growth and equity, peripheral places should not be neglected. Thus, this paper links literature on ecosystem with peripheral region studies in creating a conceptual framework of developing entrepreneurial ecosystems in peripheral places.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first reviews literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems and challenges that peripheral places facing in particular. Then, taking into consideration of literature from both fields, a conceptual framework is developed. In order to better illustrate the framework, a case study on Guildford’s digital gaming industry is reviewed based on secondary data.FindingsThough facing various challenges such as smallness, remoteness and lack of resources, peripheral places can take advantage of the digital technology and build an entrepreneurial ecosystem of its own kind through holistic collaborative approach to tackle issues around finance, talents, socio-culture environment, infrastructure, markets and policy.Originality/valueThe paper is among the first to focus on developing a holistic conceptual framework in building entrepreneurial ecosystems in peripheral areas. It can lead to a range of further research topics and contribute to develop viable practices particularly for policymakers.

Selling Virtual Currency in Digital Games: Implications for Gameplay and Social Welfare

The sale of virtual currency has become an important revenue source in the digital gaming industry. This paper analyzes the impact of this business model on players’ gaming behavior, the game provider’s strategies for virtual currency price and ad level, and social welfare. Our findings have important managerial implications for the gaming industry and policy makers. We find that when the enabling-power rate of virtual currency (i.e., how much players benefit from enhanced gameplay due to virtual currency generated per unit of playing time) is stronger, players have lower incentive to purchase virtual currency. Therefore, the provider should set a lower price to avoid losing too much demand. In the meantime, the marginal benefit of playing the game increases, and thus the provider should set a higher ad level to take advantage of this boosted marginal benefit for players when the base valuation of gameplay is sufficiently low. Finally, we demonstrate that offering in-game purchases of virtual currency as a new business model benefits society as a whole. Our findings suggest that regulators of the gaming industry should be less concerned about the risk of excessive gameplay for games that sell virtual currency compared with those that do not.

Contested Formations of Digital Game Labor

This article introduces a special issue critically investigating contemporary formations of digital game labor, with a focus on the political-economic forces, social inequalities, and technological dynamics mutually shaping these formations. Accounts of game industry practices have been at the forefront of efforts within media studies to document and theorize conditions and transformations of labor under digital capitalism. The study of digital game labor has tended to cluster around four areas of inquiry: below-the-line labor, the creative labor of game development, player-production, and game labor politics. Providing empirically informed portraits of diverse contexts and experiences of gamework, this issue interrogates multiple dimensions of precarious work and social exclusion within an industry whose playful self-image can make it a resistant object of labor-centered analysis. The contributors to this issue promote a research orientation that is attentive to how work in the digital game industry might be made more accessible and sustainable.

Acting and Motion Capture in a Digital Gaming World

The digital game industry refers to the economic sector involved in the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The rising use of digital platforms has turned video games into a massively profitable sector. Digital games are a new frontier in our global culture, with many players aiming to find some gold by partaking in the industry. In particular, actors are exploring this terrain as a possible arena in which to make their mark. This summer, Mark Lipton sat down with actor Joy Tanner to discuss and debate today’s digital gaming world. Together, they considered changes to the requirements of actors and actor training, the state of acting for digital games, and the politics of digital gaming in Canada, and particularly between Hollywood and Silicon Valley; finally, they pull back the shroud of mystery to reveal the working conditions many actors in the gaming world work under.

Türkiye’de Dijital Oyun Endüstrisi ve Oyun Geliştiriciler: Problemler ve Olanaklar

This study aims to understand the games industry’s problems in Turkey and the relation of those problems with game developers, their working practices and the ecosystem. Adopting an ethnographic approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 game developers, who work in digital games industry, mostly in one of the most important creative clustering examples in Turkey, METU Teknokent. According to the findings of the field research, main problems are defined as the lack of know-how and human capital. It is understood that those problems aggravate adverse working conditions for game developers by causing working without getting paid or underpaid and the self-teaching process that generates excessive working hours. In this regard, the potentiality of creating a culture in the game ecosystem based on solidarity, collective learning and sharing information is argued to improve Turkey’s games industry and game developers’ working conditions.

Aspects of Independent Game Production

Recent years have witnessed independent game production rise to a prominent position in the digital game industry. Be it by the fresh, innovative take it brought to the scene or by its rebellious attitude towards what is perceived as mainstream, the term “indie game” has become somewhat of a buzzword. The following study displays a series of findings of research fieldwork aiming to advance the study of indie game development by investigating organizational and managerial practices commonly adopted by these developers. Relying on semi-structured interviews conducted with lead developers of seven Brazilian indie game firms, the connections, similarities, and differences among these developers’ firm structure and project management practices and those of the larger game industry is explored, utilizing the lenses of scope, organization, time, cost, and quality management as a starting point. Given the growing and significant relevance of the game industry as a whole, this empirical study offers pragmatic data on the still-niche research topic of indie games.