The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics

by Hsuan-Yi Chou (Contribution by), Mark D. Cruea (Contribution by), Steve Cuff (Contribution by), Casey B. Hart (Contribution by), Brent Kice (Contribution by)

Overview

Today, consumers of video games spend over $22.4 billion each year; using more complex and multi-layered strategies, game developers attempt to extend the profitability of their products from a simple one-time sale, to continuous engagement with the consumer. The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics examines paradigmatic changes in the economic structure of the video game industry from a media effects and game design perspective. This book explores how game developers have changed how they engage players in order to facilitate continuous financial transactions. Contributors look from the advent of microtransactions and downloadable content (DLCs) to the impact of planned obsolescence, impulse buying, and emotional control. This collection takes a broad view of the game dynamics and market forces that drive the video game industry, and features international contributors from Asia, Europe, and Australia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498543439
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/07/2020
Series:	Studies in New Media
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

Casey B. Hart is associate professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction
Casey Hart

1. "Show me the money!" - Shifting Fields of Capital in the Global Game Industry

Casey O’Donnell

1. Nintendo’s Retro Revolution: Commodified Nostalgia and the Virtual Console

Steve Cuff and Christopher Terry

1. Business Models, Planned Obsolescence, Externalities: Examining the Virtual Hand of the Video Game Industry

Mark D. Cruea

1. Prestige: A Cyclical Act for Consumer Control

Brent Kice

1. Free-to-play? Considering the interaction of functional factors in video game design influencing the economic effectiveness of microtransactions

Casey Hart

1. P(l)aying Pretty: Consuming Fairy Tales and Device Applications

Emma Whatman

1. Playing with and against Microtransactions: The Discourses of Microtransactions Acceptance and Rejection in Mainstream Video Games

Jan Švelch

1. Smart Players and Happy Consumers: Effects of Game Characteristics and Player Emotional Experiences on in-App Ad Responses

Hsuan-Yi Chou and Shaojung Sharon Wang

1. Gold Farming in China—and in Western Academia, Journalism, and Fiction

Bjarke Liboriussen

About the Editor and Contributors

Editorial Reviews

The reality of the video game industry is that it is a business and economic forces have tremendous impact upon its growth and development. The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics functions as a valuable guide to game scholars for understanding how such forces interact with the games that they play and study.

Matthew Wysocki

There is a web of critical issues at play in the economic world of games, and Hart’s collection begins to untangle them. These essays start a much needed conversation about the unseen economic motivations in gaming culture.

Sky LaRell Anderson

With the volume, Dr. Hart invites readers to engage a wide variety of academic perspectives that discuss shifts in video game production and marketing in the face of an evolving and maturing gaming public. These essays offer a far more complex and compelling discussion beyond a “dollars and cents” economic analysis of the video game industry; they also provide insight into the interplay between the industry and how it creates and markets games for changing audiences.

Nicholas D. Bowman