Business Model and Value Network Innovation in the Video Game Industry
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Department of International Management Chair of Creative Industries and Business Model Innovation The game is changing: business model and value network innovation in the video game industry Candidate: Davide Pica Identification n°: 694681 Supervisor: Co-supervisor: Prof. Francesca Tauriello Prof. Luca Pirolo ACADEMIC YEAR: 2018/2019 Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................... V Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 First Chapter: CCI, E&M and Videogames Industry Overview .......................... 5 1.1 Creative and Cultural Industries Highlights ...................................................... 5 1.2 Entertainment and Media Industries Overview ............................................... 12 1.3 Video Game Industry: History, Figures and Trends ........................................ 15 Second Chapter: Business Model Innovation in the Video Game Industry ....... 43 2.1 Theoretical Framework: Business Model (BM) Concept, BM Canvas and BM Innovation Adaptations .......................................................................................... 43 2.2 Business Model Innovation in The Video Game Industry ............................... 50 2.2.1 Customer Segments ............................................................................... 50 2.2.2 Value Proposition ................................................................................. 53 2.2.3 Channels ................................................................................................ 57 2.2.4 Customer Relationships ........................................................................ 60 2.2.5 Revenue Streams ................................................................................... 62 2.2.6 Key Resources ....................................................................................... 76 2.2.7 Key Activities ......................................................................................... 77 2.2.8 Key Actors ............................................................................................. 80 2.2.9 Cost Structure ....................................................................................... 82 2.3 Case Studies ..................................................................................................... 84 2.3.1 Candy Crush Saga ............................................................................... 84 2.3.2 Pokémon Go .......................................................................................... 89 2.3.3 Oculus Rift ............................................................................................. 94 2.3.4 Steam ..................................................................................................... 97 2.3.5 Twitch .................................................................................................. 100 Third Chapter: Value Chain Innovation in The Video Game Industry ........... 105 3.1 Value Chain and Value Network .................................................................. 105 3.2 Value Network in The Video Game Industry ............................................... 111 3.3 Value Network Innovation in The Video Game Industry ............................. 113 3.3.1 Capital or Investment Layer .............................................................. 114 3.3.2 Product and Talent Layer .................................................................. 116 3.3.3 Production and Tools Layer .............................................................. 118 3.3.4 Publishing or Distribution Layer ....................................................... 118 3.3.5 Hardware Layer .................................................................................. 120 III 3.3.6 End-User Layer ................................................................................... 121 Fourth Chapter: Survey Findings ........................................................................ 123 4.1 Methodology .................................................................................................. 123 4.2 Results ............................................................................................................ 124 4.2.1 Demographics ..................................................................................... 125 4.2.2 Gaming Habits .................................................................................... 125 4.2.3 Platform and Distribution Preferences .............................................. 126 4.2.4 Online Gaming .................................................................................... 127 4.2.5 Gaming Video Content (GVC) ............................................................ 128 4.2.6 Esports ................................................................................................ 129 4.2.7 Extended Reality (VR, AR) .................................................................. 129 4.3 Findings and Recommendations .................................................................... 130 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 135 References ............................................................................................................... 139 Books, Journals, Reports and Magazines ..................................................... 139 Online resources ........................................................................................... 143 Appendix 1. Index of Figures and Tables ............................................................ 145 Appendix 2. Questionnaire .................................................................................... 147 Summary ................................................................................................................. 173 IV Abstract Innovation, under both a technological and a more endogenous perspective, has changed the structure of the actors involved in doing business and business models themselves across many different industries. Through the use of both primary and secondary qualitative data in support of an exploratory and inductive research, the objective of this thesis is to present an empirically founded outline of the historical evolution of doing business in the video game industry in order to identify the major innovations occurred, focusing on new business models and new actors and relations emerged in the industry value chain. Furthermore, the study also investigates consumers’ attitude towards the latest advancements of the industry in order to explore possible future market developments. Based on the current research of business models and value chain, the author adapted and merged existing frameworks in order to apply them to the video game as a business and to achieve the first two above-mentioned goals. This allowed the identification of innovations in every aspect of the value creation, delivery and capture process, as well as in the succession and the overlap of new and old actors involved in the process. Finally, a survey was distributed among a diversified sample of gamers to investigate their general gaming habits and their attitude towards some selected recent industry advancements in order to explore possible future market developments. Among key findings of the research there is the shift from firm- to user-originated value and from game as a product to game as a service (GaaS), with consumers strongly contributing to the value creation process and customizing their own game experience. Furthermore, revenue models also experienced strong innovations aimed at leveraging free distribution to fully exploit the recent market expansion. Finally, the survey highlighted a high consumers’ adoption of relatively new industry advancements such as gaming video contents and their strong interest toward V technologies in development like virtual reality headsets, resulting in recommendations for corporate actors involved in the chain with regards to new channels and technologies to invest on. The study contributes to the existing literature of the video game industry by providing a comprehensive and dynamic understanding of the evolution and innovations occurred in every aspect of doing business in the reference industry, with a focus on consumers’ attitude toward its latest advancements. VI Introduction The video game industry has reached a US$138 billion turnover in 2018, qualifying as one of the fastest growing in the broader entertainment and media grouping. Within this larger category, the video game industry is the only one to be digitally “native”, therefore being on the cutting edge of novel developments that have been mainly shaped by digitalization in recent times. Digitalization, apart from creating new opportunities, also threatens old ways of creating, delivering and capturing value, enhancing the dynamism of the video game business. As a matter of fact, even though the industry is a relatively young one with its approximate fifty years of life, it has experienced a huge amount of innovation in many different times. These novelties came from both hardware, eased by technology improvements, and, more endogenously, software and managerial intuitions. These innovations and the many creative ways introduced to exploit them resulted in uncountable new ways of doing business that gave