DEGREE PROJECT IN TECHNOLOGY, FIRST CYCLE, 15 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2016 The cooperative future of game development A phenomenon of collaboration between producers and consumers in the video game industry VIKTOR GUSTAFSSON GUSTAV HÖGLUND KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND COMMUNICATION Abstract Independent developers and large­scale development studios ­ commonly seen as the Davids and Goliaths of the video game industry ­ are moving closer together. Powerful software frameworks, traditionally reserved for professional developers and only available through expensive licenses, are becoming free to use for consumers. By sharing their tools instead of keeping them for themselves, companies can utilize the combined talent of whole communities and monetize on that talent through royalties and other indirect fees. This paper describes how the video game industry has developed in recent years to allow for this change in business strategy and examines how the industry can continue to evolve because of this. The result of a Delphi study based on interviews with game developers both inside and outside the industry point toward a future of increased intermingling and sharing of knowledge and resources, characterized by more producer­consumer collaborations and closer relationships between companies and their communities. By adopting free­to­use business models and sharing powerful, proprietary software with their consumers, companies are lowering the point of entry for aspiring developers and thereby dissolving the traditional narrative of “we and them” that has existed between independent developers and established studios in the past. Keywords: producer­consumer collaboration, indie, modding, business model, ​ game development, game engine, participatory culture, outsourcing innovation, community platforms. Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank the respondents of our Delphi ​ study for providing the data and the developer of WERIDE for insightful comments and advice. The authors take responsibility for any errors in this paper. 1 Sammanfattning Oberoende utvecklare och storskaliga utvecklingsstudior ­ vanligtvis betraktade som tv­spelsindustrins David och Goliath ­ rör sig allt närmre varandra. Kraftfulla mjukvaruramverk som traditionellt sett varit reserverade för professionella utvecklare och som tidigare endast varit tillgängliga genom kostsamma licenser blir i allt större utsträckning gratis att använda för konsumenter. Genom att dela med sig av sina verktyg istället för att hålla dem för sig själva så kan företag nyttja den kombinerade talangen hos sociala nätverk knutna till sina produkter och generera intäkter genom royalties och andra indirekta avgifter. Denna uppsats beskriver hur tv­spelsindustrins utveckling på senare år har möjliggjort denna affärsstrategiska förändring och hur industrin kan fortsätta att utvecklas som en följd av detta. Resultatet av en Delfistudie baserad på intervjuer med spelutvecklare både inom och utanför industrin pekar mot en framtid av ökat samspel och delande av kunskap och resurser. Detta karaktäriseras av fler samarbeten mellan producenter och konsumenter samt närmre relationer mellan företag och deras konsumentnätverk. Genom att ta till sig affärsmodeller som bygger på gratis­att­använda­principer och att dela med sig av avancerad, äganderättsskyddad mjukvara med sina konsumenter, så sänker företag ingångströskeln för aspirerande spelutvecklare. Därigenom löser företagen upp den traditionella “vi och dem”­relationen som tidigare existerat mellan oberoende utvecklare och etablerade studior. Nyckelord: producent­konsumentsamarbeten, indie, modding, affärsmodell, ​ spelutveckling, spelmotor, deltagarkultur, outsourcing innovation, konsumentnätverk. Tillkännagivanden: Författarna vill tacka de medverkande i vår Delfistudie för att ​ ha bidragit med data och utvecklaren av WERIDE för insiktsfulla kommentarer och råd. Författarna tar ansvar för möjliga fel i uppsatsen. 2 Table of contents Abstract 1 Sammanfattning 2 1. Introduction 5 1.2 Background 5 1.3 Purpose of this study 8 1.4 Structure of the paper 8 2. Theory 9 2.1 User­centered innovation & producer­consumer collaboration 9 2.2 Outsourcing innovation 10 2.3 Intellectual property rights 11 3. Methodology 12 3.1 The Delphi method 12 3.2 Choosing suitable experts 13 3.3 Questionnaire 14 3.4 Case study 15 3.5 Comparative analysis 15 4. Results 16 4.1 Delphi study 16 4.2 Case Study 23 4.3 Comparative analysis of Unreal Engine 4 and Amazon Lumberyard 25 5. Discussion 27 5.1 Method critique 29 6. Conclusions ­ The coming years 31 3 7. References 33 8. Attachments 36 8.1 Attachment #1 36 4 1. Introduction The video game industry is representative of the digital era with its way of growing, changing and converging into other businesses. The changes that has occurred in recent years have caused companies to rethink their organizational structures in order to fit in with their business goals (often designed to maximize profits). This has caused a decrease in innovation and originality in the industry, leading video game developers to produce fewer novel gaming experiences in favor of low­risk sequels to well known brands (Tschang 2007). A growing dissatisfaction among consumers, caused by the limited supply of innovative games, might explain the uprise of independent games (Arakji & Lang 2007). The profit seeking companies are now thoroughly investigating the independent game scene for clues about how to deal with this transformation (Tschang 2007). 1.2 Background In this section we present underlying concepts and events that have had impact on the video game industry. The indie genre Independent games have yet to find a clear definition but certain common factors are to be found. Our definition of independent games is as proposed by P.Ruffino (2013) in his paper Narratives of independent production video game culture. Independent ​ ​ games are developed without the aid of a publisher and the team usually consists of few members if not a single person. The developer(s) is responsible for the whole development process and thus expected to receive the complete eventual profit. Indie games would also be enriched in a non­business manner with unique features not to be found elsewhere. Independent game developers (from here on also referred to as indie developers) ​ ​ have traditionally been people with the time, funding and technical skills required to develop games from the ground up. In recent years however, crowdfunding systems 5 such as Kickstarter, Patreon and Indiegogo have made it possible for indie ​ ​ ​ ​ developers without sufficient economic resources to actualize their ideas. Despite this, the requirement of significant technical skills has persisted. For indie developers, choosing a suitable software framework in which to build the games ­ more commonly known as the game engine ­ has also traditionally meant building ​ your own tools or turning to freely distributed software, as professional game engine licenses can cost several thousand dollars to purchase (Kasurinen et al. 2013). The art of modding Historically, one of the ways that aspiring developers have been able to interact with professional, proprietary game engines has been through mods ­ direct modifications ​ which build upon or transform the original games. The act of modifying games, known in the video game industry as modding, became popular when professional ​ ​ developers started to release game toolkits together with their original games. However, the toolkits were often restricted to certain features within the game engine and were only usable on top of the original game, limiting the scope of what was possible to do by modding the original product. (Arakji & Lang 2007) The game development company Valve, well­known for their generous attitude towards mods, used the toolkits­strategy when they released the best selling shooter game Half­Life in 1998. Consumers were given access to about 80% of the code while ​ the other 20%, representing the underlying game engine, was left inaccessible. Half­Life went on to become very successful on its own but modders (the name given ​ to those who mod games) would increase product sales even further (Arakji & Lang 2007). One year after its original publication, two students wrote the mod Counter­Strike which turned out to be even more popular than the original game. This lead to Valve acquiring the mod and hiring the students, eventually leading Counter­Strike to become a separate product of Valve’s and becoming one of the highest selling video games of all time (Remo, 2008). This not only showed the potential effects individual consumers and indie developers can have on the professional game industry, but also that professional game studios can use modders 6 and other independent developers as a source of revenue as well as technical talent. (Arakji & Lang 2007) The new business model The American game developer Epic Games' own game engine Unreal Engine is one ​ ​ ​ of the gaming industry’s most popular engines of the last 15 years. It has been used in the production of several best selling video games with high development budgets, including Epic Games' own Gears of War and Unreal Tournament game series. The ​ ​ latest version of the game engine, Unreal Engine 4, was released to the public for free in March 2015, thereby becoming the first game engine of its kind to be available in its entirety for modders and indie developers. This has enabled small scale development of technically impressive