What do online games imply for business and why does this make us feel that it is just the beginning?

Résumé du document

From the very first year of our life, we play. Not only because we enjoy it or feel happy when playing, but because we are at the same time, learning. Find our limits, experience the world, and manipulate new objects… All those actions we do are aimed to improve our knowledge of what is around us. Several years later, we have grown up. But still, we found other toys to play with. Technology has evolved and we have now more “serious” gadgets. Internet is tending to become a great part of our lives, our adult life which became over-connected.

But, where is the link with business? During several centuries, before the invention of the World Wide Web, we banned games from business, considering business as serious as our adult life. In the 90s, and the development of the Internet, older boys began to play with a new demon: video games and the “worst” of all: Counter Strike. Parents began to blame children to be more captivated by those games rather than by studying. Indeed they were captivated: connected games that allowed them to play with friends or people all around the world sharing the same hobby… they were ready to break the piggybank for that, and they did. A new economy was born thanks to the Internet. Developers created games that gave teenagers the opportunity to challenge other players, surpass their best scores… Such an emulation of interests, isn't it?!

Extraits

[...] Based on what we noticed and how companies are adapting themselves to new media, we can surely say that we will face an increase in advertising. AdFree games will probably disappear due to the increasing costs of development that sells revenues cannot totally absorb. life” games as we saw in the video will come up in the market and should be very welcome regarding to the atmosphere we can feel on specialized websites, forums and conventions. So, future seems to promise us a lot of entertainment! [...]

[...] Simões, J., Diaz Redondo, R., & Vilas, A. (2012, May 5). A social gamification framework for a K-6 learning platform. Human Behavior. Strokes, T. (2012). How Social Media Is Changing Brand. Forrester. Casual games: games played on or downloaded from casual game websites including premium versions of games, downloaded from such sites (but no social networking sites) Social games: games played on social networks such as Facebook, Google + US National Gamer Survey 2011 Lendrevie, J., & Lévy, J. (2013). Mercator (10 ed.) (p. [...]

[...] Online games as a new media for engagement and promotion With the previous statements we can now understand that online games are as serious as any other industry. We saw that several business models apply to games and that advertisements are already considered as a part of those (cf. AdFree model). So, how can we explain that games and more precisely “online games” became the new first place where to communicate? 1 A new place where to communicate First of all, the games we are talking about are video games. [...]

[...] This model is one of the most important keys of our analysis and we will explain it through multiple examples. Freemium has several applications but one interest us particularly for a very specific characteristic: the Add-on model. Add-ons have been created for players wishing to be even more involved in a game. They can be special items, services, or anything that can be a for players who buy it. Add-on gives advantages and expresses the singularity of the one who purchased it. [...]

[...] Studies disagree on what benefits to players and what makes video games evil. We will not argue in this paper on the influence of video games on players. At least we can say that this study proves that the level of attention increases during a party[6] and more precisely when playing to “online games”, compared to playing “offline games”. So, taking the opportunity of all these players playing games during a lot of time and with a great attention, companies decided to creep into screens to put ads. [...]