Digital platforms and the new spirit of capitalism: A study into the digital game industry (original) (raw)
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Digital Games Between the Tensions of Culture, Creativity and Industry
2019
People working in the games industry and researchers in this field probably know that it is not easy to reach comprehensive global data and analysis of the digital games industry. The first reason is the complex structure of the industry since it depends on many variables such as national and regional policies, cities, investments, incentives or the organizational strategies in political, economic, social and cultural aspects. The second reason, on the other hand, is related to finding an objective and independent statistics of the digital games industry. Apart from that, academic studies on the digital games industry mostly focus on the content of digital games and rarely on the structure of the industry or game workers’ experiences. The absence of these studies in the literature is reasonably foreseeable considering the rapidly changing and transforming nature of technology and the difficulty to find long-term research funding for scholars.
2013
medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Table of Contents List of diagrams, tables and textboxes List of Acronyms 2.3.1.5 Unstructured participant observation 2.4 Data management and analysis through NViVO 2.5 Ethical considerations CHAPTER 3. DIGITAL PLAY INDUSTRIALISED: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DIGITAL GAMES INDUSTRY 3.1 The foundations of the modern industry I: The console industry before the crisis of 1983 3.2 The foundations of the modern industry II: Personal computing as a serious hobby 3.3 The shaping of the modern industry (1985-1994) 3.3.1 A thriving computer game culture 3.3.2 Reviving the console market, setting up new trajectories 3.4 Corporate dreams: conquering the living room (1995-2001) 3.4.1 The rise of Sony and the fall of SEGA 3.4.2 Setting new horizons 3.5 Beyond the limits: The world as a player 3.5.1 Three can survive the game 3.5.2 Rearranging the neighbourhood: a new balance of power 3.5.3 Media convergence and the diversification of game production and consumption CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPING DIGITAL GAMES IN THE LARGER INDUSTRY 4.1 Contextualising technology in the digital game industry 4.2 Structure and distribution of power within the industry 4.
Moment Journal, 2019
it is not easy to reach comprehensive global data and analysis of the digital games industry. The first reason is the complex structure of the industry since it depends on many variables such as national and regional policies, cities, investments, incentives or the organizational strategies in political, economic, social and cultural aspects. The second reason, on the other hand, is related to finding an objective and independent statistics of the digital games industry. Apart from that, academic studies on the digital games industry mostly focus on the content of digital games and rarely on the structure of the industry or game workers' experiences. The absence of these studies in the literature is reasonably foreseeable considering the rapidly changing and transforming nature of technology and the difficulty to find long-term research funding for scholars.
Digital Games, Construction of Hegemony and Culture INDUSTRY1
2016
Playing games is one of the most important tools for children to use their creativity, to express themselves, and to improve their skills. Educative and effective games are seen as the easiest ways to socialize. Advancements in technology and digital systems have also been changing the quality of games and altering the traditional understanding of the game. Games in digital field, whose scope of setting is expanding every second, are used as new places for teenagers to socialize where they can access to all players globally. Changing definition of public areas is providing encounters in digital world and hegemony of one culture over another is established by means of video games. Digital games as products of culture industry have been bought and sold as new media products; thus customers of these game companies could not get over with the hegemonic effect of these products. In this study, GTA V, which is the last product of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) digital game series, is going to be ...
Studying Platforms and Cultural Production: Methods, Institutions, and Practices
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This introduction to the second special collection of articles on the platformization of the cultural industries foregrounds research methods and practices. Drawing from the 12 articles included in this collection, as well as the 14 articles published in the first collection, we identify commonalities in approaches, consistencies in traditions, and uniform modes of analysis. We argue that approaches that have been deployed in media industry studies for decades—semi-structured interviews, discourse analysis, content analysis, and participant observation—remain productive. At the same time, transformations in the temporalities and curation of cultural production require updated modes of investigation and analysis. As such, we spotlight contributors’ novel methods and innovative theoretical approaches, such as the walkthrough method and multi-sided market theory.
Platform Studies and Digital Cultural Industries
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By providing a review of a number of recent and relevant publications, this paper reconstructs major trends, topics and challenges within the state of the art of scholarly research on the platformization of cultural industries, addressing the crucial role that digital platforms have acquired in recent years in the production and circulation of a variety of cultural contents. More specifically, after offering an introduction on the ways in which the study of digital platforms emerged as strictly intertwined with the evolution of certain cultural industry sectors, such as gaming and video sharing, the paper addresses in-depth three distinctive domains of cultural production and consumption: music, journalism, and photography. In so doing, the paper traces a variety of perspectives beyond the mainstream political economy-oriented focus of platform studies, suggesting emerging paths for future research on these rapidly shifting and increasingly debated issues.
Digital Platform as a Double-Edged Sword: How to Interpret Cultural Flows in the Platform Era
International Journal of Communication, 2017
This article critically examines the main characteristics of cultural flows in the era of digital platforms. By focusing on the increasing role of digital platforms during the Korean Wave (referring to the rapid growth of local popular culture and its global penetration starting in the late 1990s), it first analyzes whether digital platforms as new outlets for popular culture have changed traditional notions of cultural flows—the forms of the export and import of popular culture mainly from Western countries to non-Western countries. Second, it maps out whether platform-driven cultural flows have resolved existing global imbalances in cultural flows. Third, it analyzes whether digital platforms themselves have intensified disparities between Western and non-Western countries. In other words, it interprets whether digital platforms have deepened asymmetrical power relations between a few Western countries (in particular, the United States) and non-Western countries.
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2024
Research on platforms and cultural production is dominated by studies that take the Anglo-American world and Northwestern Europe as their main points of reference. Central concepts in the field, consequently, bear the imprint of Western institutions, cultural practices, and ideals. Critically responding to this state of affairs, this opening essay of the special issue on Global Perspectives on Platforms and Cultural Production, consisting of 20 articles, aims to: 1) challenge universalism, 2) provincialize the US, and 3) multiply our frames of reference. Pursuing these objectives, we bring together ideas from postcolonial and decolonial theory and platform studies in a systematic research program. This global perspectives program allows us to: denaturalize and rethink dominant concepts and ideas through research from around the globe; explicitly thematize and examine the global power relations that structure platform economies; and critically interrogate the knowledge production about these economies.
The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity
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This article explores how the political economy of the cultural industries changes through platformization: the penetration of economic and infrastructural extensions of online platforms into the web, affecting the production, distribution, and circulation of cultural content. It pursues this investigation in critical dialogue with current research in business studies, political economy, and software studies. Focusing on the production of news and games, the analysis shows that in economic terms platformization entails the replacement of two-sided market structures with complex multisided platform configurations, dominated by big platform corporations. Cultural content producers have to continuously grapple with seemingly serendipitous changes in platform governance, ranging from content curation to pricing strategies. Simultaneously, these producers are enticed by new platform services and infrastructural changes. In the process, cultural commodities become fundamentally "contingent," that is increasingly modular in design and continuously reworked and repackaged, informed by datafied user feedback.
Global perspectives on platforms and cultural production
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2024
Research on platforms and cultural production is dominated by studies that take the Anglo-American world and Northwestern Europe as their main points of reference. Central concepts in the field, consequently, bear the imprint of Western institutions, cultural practices, and ideals. Critically responding to this state of affairs, this opening essay of the special issue on Global Perspectives on Platforms and Cultural Production, consisting of 20 articles, aims to: 1) challenge universalism, 2) provincialize the US, and 3) multiply our frames of reference. Pursuing these objectives, we bring together ideas from postcolonial and decolonial theory and platform studies in a systematic research program. This global perspectives program allows us to: denaturalize and rethink dominant concepts and ideas through research from around the globe; explicitly thematize and examine the global power relations that structure platform economies; and critically interrogate the knowledge production about these economies.