In the months following the Sandy Hook elementary school tragedy, there has been increased attention and debate regarding violent video games and how they affect those who play them. While some lobby for increased regulation of their sale, others argue that video games are not the reason such tragedies continue to happen. In this report, I approach the debate from social, personal and political dimensions to better identify the inconsistencies regarding how violent video games are presented to and received by the public. I also interview video game developers, critics, and researchers to uncover solutions and new strategies to increase video game education and perception about the use of violence in a video game. / text

I study the impact of the used goods market on pricing and profits in the video game industry and the implications of resale restrictions. I develop a modeling framework that incorporates (a) heterogeneous consumers who are forward looking in their buying an selling behaviors, (b) a strategic game producer who prices its products considering both inter-temporal price discrimination and price competition with used goods, (c) rational expectations on future prices by both consumers and the firm, and (d) market equilibria for both new and used-goods markets. Without observing sales data, I use equilibrium pricing solutions in my model and the varying rate of price decrease after a game's release to identify the sales volume of a game in every period as a percentage of its total demand. I develop a computationally tractable utility specification to solve the computational challenge comes with modeling the supply side equilibrium. I construct the demand function for a game from heterogeneous consumers whose valuations distribute on an interval, and partially characterize the consumers' decisions and reduce the dimensionality of the state space. Applying the model to a unique dataset of game prices collected from the Internet, I estimate the game-specific demand for multiple games released in the U.S. market. The results show significant variation across games in terms of shapes of valuation distributions, expected play time, degrees of consumers' preference for new over used games, and price sensitivities. Policy simulations show that the effects of prohibiting resale largely depend on the shape of a game's demand distribution, because most of the profits are gained from higher-valuation consumers who purchase the game when the price is high. Prohibiting resale does not dampen their willingness to pay for the game because their high utility from playing it. Moreover, higher expected future prices in the absence of the used-game market further reduces their incentives to wait. I find the predicted profit increase is significant for most games when reselling is prohibited. However, games with demand consisting mostly of low valuation consumers benefit less from this structural change, because (a) early sales increase only slightly given a much smaller proportion of high valuation consumers and (b) losing the option to resell significantly decreases the willingness to pay for low valuation consumers, forcing the firm to slash its prices dramatically over time. I find empirical evidence that a firm can be better off with the used game market. This suggests that though eliminating the resale market is generally optimal for popular games, retaining it can be more profitable for some games. / text

This paper deals with the Swedish computer and video game industry. The aim is toreach a better understanding of why it has been so successful and why it has seen such a largegrowth during the years 2008-2015. In the paper, this is shown by looking at Sweden’s computerand video game sector as a cluster, as defined by Porter. The analysis is based on a model usingnational systems of innovation. The paper presents a narrative of the development of theSwedish video game industry as well as cases describing specific companies in more detail.The reasons for the growth during the period are found to be primarily three different aspects ofthe sector: (1) success of the Swedish game Minecraft (2) the specific market conditions (3) acycle of growth in the Swedish game industry. The conditions allowing the Swedish gameindustry to be successful are found to be tradition, international focus, the Swedish nationalwelfare system, all supported by well-developed technical educations.

The report features the technical fundamentals, implementation, results and discussions within the field of mobile application development in the game industry. The thesis explored the game industry from within the industry, as the purpose was to further expand the game concept of the PC game theHunter by using a mobile platform. In the age of the multi-touch smartphone, applications are a huge and competitive industry withmany interesting development approaches. Using the fundamental principles of system architecture and interface design for mobile development, a game companion application based in an Android environment was developed. Game data was provided by the game development studio Expansive Worlds. The results showed support for the platform, but clearly states that further development is needed to actually explore the mobile market further. Implications for the results of the study and future tasks are discussed.

This study aimed to explore which philosophies and opinions professionals within the Chinese indie game industry hold in relation to the indie concept. Indie is a short form of the word "independence”, and is used to describe certain products and creative practices within media such as video games. The term’s exact definition is however subject to discussion. This study aims to include Chinese game professionals in this discussion. The study was carried out in China through Game Hub Scandinavia (Game Hub Scandinavia, 2018) and in cooperation with Indienova. The participants that were interviewed in this study were all professionals within the Chinese game industry. The research tools developed for these interviews were two playable demos and a survey. The answers provided constituted as basis for the study’s concluding analysis. The data indicated that the Chinese indie developers define indie as a creative endeavour which products and underlying ambitions contrasts the commercially motivated game industry in China. / <p>2018-08-23 14:25, G203, svenska</p><p>Högskolevägen 1, 541 28, Skövde</p>

Many Swedish video game companies have in recent years been very successful in terms of share price development. Why is it like that? With the purpose to gain an increased understanding of the investor's choice, we here examine which business models are used in the Swedish video game industry. More specifically, we try to identify what similarities do the business models in the successful companies share and what similarities do the non-performing companies share. The analytical framework used is based on Business Model Canvas adapted to the video game industry. We use a qualitative approach with case studies of 10 listed Swedish video gaming companies, five successful and five non-performing, in terms of share price development. The data collected is from secondary sources, mainly the companies' annual reports, fitting the investors narrative with the assumption that secondary data is generally what influences the stock price.In general, the results suggest that similarities between business models among the successful companies largely coincide with similarities between the non-performing companies, which makes the information less valuable for understanding investors' choices. Nevertheless, one unique similarity among successful companies applies to that they in general have broad gaming portfolios that target several unrelated customer segments, i.e. a diversified market. The non-performing companies instead mainly target a niche market. Another unique similarity among successful companies’ business models concerns their use of acquisition strategies. In the non-performing companies' business models, acquisition strategies are largely lacking.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to extend the understanding of the business model of video game retailers using online and physical stores focusing on the impact of digital platforms on the retailing industry within the context of video game industry considering different actor’s perspectives like retailers and consumers. Design/methodology/approach - This is a multiple-case study based on deductive reasoning. In this qualitative study, two cases of click-and-mortar retailers operating in the Swedish video game industry have been considered along with feedback from customers. Online personal interviews and semi-structured interviews have been conducted with retailers and customers respectively. Both primary and secondary data have been used to conduct the study. Findings - Findings show that video game retailers need to encourage engagement through incentives and other activities in order to create value and change up their formats and sales strategies through pricing to reach new customers and focus on design of their online store fronts to convey trustworthiness.  Research limitations - A major limitation has been the COVID-19 pandemic spreading during the writing of this paper, which resulted in companies backing out to refocus their efforts. Another limitation has been the legal aspect as companies owned by bigger publishers denied to take part in the study to avoid revealing sensitive information. Practical implications - It offers some insightful practical suggestions to retailers who are struggling hard to adopt digital transformations in the industry. Originality - Authors’ proposed research model, based on Sorescu et al. (2011)’s retail business model and the empirical findings, contribute in the less explored domain of research on business models from retailer’s perspectives. Moreover, it adds values in industry specific study like the video game industry in Sweden considering all actors, which is argued as scarce.

Early-stage investors increasingly impact the surging video game industry. Thus, understanding their thought processes provides vital insight for entrepreneurs. This thesis explores how early-stage investors assess investment opportunities in the Swedish game industry by presenting semistructured interviews with three prominent angel investors. Thematic analysis was performed on the interview data to extract significant themes regarding investors’ thought processes. Themes were then contrasted with previous research on investor decision-making to establish emergent patterns in the game industry. Results indicate that investors regard the composition and reliability of the team and pursue long-term involvement in companies. It is particularly important for teams to inspire trust. If investors can connect to teams personally, it facilitates successful long-term collaboration. Future research should focus on interviewing investors in other flourishing game markets, such as the U.S. or Chinese. Congruent results may lay the foundation for a framework to aid developers with acquiring funds in the broader game industry.

In recent years, playing games has become a popular activity for everything from socialising purposes to educating purposes, with billions of players worldwide. However, being able to play games is not evident for people with disabilities. The gaming industry is excluding masses of people by not creating enough accessible games. Indie gaming is a part of the gaming industry that has grown immensely during the last decades. Indie game companies are often smaller studios with independent publications, finances and creativity. Almost everyone has the tools nowadays for making games. Indie game companies do not usually have the resources for engaging as much in accessibility as bigger companies do. Since they are distributing a big share of the games on the market today it is necessary to explore their possibilities of creating more accessible games despite their resource constraints. The research question for this study is “What are the game development challenges that Swedish indie game companies face when implementing accessible design practices, and how can they overcome them?”. This was investigated through a survey study where the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with employees at seven different indie game companies in Sweden. The results revealed perceived challenges in the tools that the investigated companies utilised, such as challenges in accessibility communication, resource constraints and how they aim to gather player feedback. Other challenges were identified in how the company operates, more specifically in their work tasks and planning of accessibility. Results also contributed to an understanding of how the investigated companies work with accessibility, through how they prioritise tasks and how they receive accessibility information. Possible solutions on how they can overcome challenges were identified, both on an individual and company level, as well as on an industry level for the indie gaming market. The results provided insights into the factors impeding indie game companies and developers from designing for accessibility as well as possible solutions to these challenges. These findings contribute to the understanding of the challenges with implementing accessible design practices and have added a nuanced perspective on the challenges faced by indie game developers and suggest potential directions for future investigation, both in research and in the indie game industry.

There are several studies on the video game industry in Iran, and most of them are primarily focused on state-funded organizations which produce politically motivated games to push the geopolitical and domestic goals of the government. However, there is a lot more to the Iranian video game industry, one of which is the dichotomic nature of the private enterprises and their contrast with the mentioned state-funded products. To contextualize, we require the expression of concrete historical and cultural elements while exploring this dichotomic nature alongside many other paradoxical factors that shape the modern video game industry in Iran. The purpose of this paper is to, for the first time, shed light on the history and the current state of the video game industry in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I’ve used an ethnographic approach in my paper by doing numerous interviews to get a clear picture of cultural narratives and cultural responses that correspond and result in creating art. This digital ethnography could be of help to many to seek knowledge on the mentioned topics.