This book is the first study to survey, over a ten-year period, innovations and the industrial formation process of online game business, and global strategies of major Korean online game companies. It focuses on the innovative factors which made the Korean online game industry grow tremendously and successfully to gain competitiveness in the global game industry. These include: The main factors stimulating online game business; virtual business created by online games as well as an examination of the role of the Korean government at the beginning and developmental period of the online gaming business. This book also contains authentic and accumulated research conducted over five years in the international domain of the online game industry. This research unveils diverse strategies of game companies and presents cognitive differences toward the online game business where various convergences will occur between the online game and other Internet businesses.

This book is the first study to survey, over a ten-year period, innovations and the industrial formation process of online game business, and global strategies of major Korean online game companies. It focuses on the innovative factors which made the Korean online game industry grow tremendously and successfully to gain competitiveness in the global game industry. These include: the main factors stimulating online game business; virtual business created by online games as well as an examination of the role of the Korean government at the beginning and developmental period of the online gaming business.This book also contains authentic and accumulated research conducted over five years in the international domain of the online game industry. This research unveils diverse strategies of game companies and presents cognitive differences toward the online game business where various convergences will occur between the online game and other Internet businesses./a

This book is the first study to survey, over a ten-year period, innovations and the industrial formation process of online game business, and global strategies of major Korean online game companies. It focuses on the innovative factors which made the Korean online game industry grow tremendously and successfully to gain competitiveness in the global game industry. These include: the main factors stimulating online game business; virtual business created by online games as well as an examination of the role of the Korean government at the beginning and developmental period of the online gaming business.

Video games have had a greater impact on our society than almost any other leisure activity. They not only consume a large portion of our free time, they influence cultural trends, drive microprocessor development, and help train pilots and soldiers. Now, with the Nintendo Wii and DS, they are helping people stay fit, facilitating rehabilitation, and creating new learning opportunities. Innovation has played a major role in the long term success of the video game industry, as software developers and hardware engineers attempt to design products that meet the needs of ever widening segments of the population. At the same time, companies with the most advanced products are often proving to be less successful than their competitors. Innovation and Marketing in the Video Game Industry identifies patterns that will help engineers, developers, and marketing executives to formulate better business strategies and successfully bring new products to market. Readers will also discover how some video game companies are challenging normal industry rules by using radical innovations to attract new customers. Finally, this revealing book sheds light on why some innovations have attracted legions of followers among populations that have never before been viewed as gamers, including parents and senior citizens and how video games have come to be used in a variety of socially beneficial ways. David Wesley and Gloria Barczak's comparison of product features, marketing strategies, and the supply chain will appeal to marketing professionals, business managers, and product design engineers in technology intensive industries, to government officials who are under increasing pressure to understand and regulate video games, and to anyone who wants to understand the inner workings of one of the most important industries to emerge in modern times. In addition, as video games become an ever more pervasive aspect of media entertainment, managers from companies of all stripes need to understand video gaming as a way to reach potential customers.

What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokémon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. Yet this industry generates billions in revenue by thinking creatively about digital distribution, free-to-play content, and phenomena like e-sports and live streaming. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment? One Up offers a pioneering empirical analysis of innovation and strategy in the video game industry to explain how it has evolved from a fringe activity to become a mainstream form of entertainment. Joost van Dreunen, a widely recognized industry expert with over twenty years of experience, analyzes how game makers, publishers, and platform holders have tackled strategic challenges to make the video game industry what it is today. Using more than three decades of rigorously compiled industry data, he demonstrates that video game companies flourish when they bring the same level of creativity to business strategy that they bring to game design. Filled with case studies of companies such as Activision Blizzard, Apple, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nexon, Sony, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, and Valve, this book forces us to rethink common misconceptions around the emergence of digital and mobile gaming. One Up is required reading for investors, creatives, managers, and anyone looking to learn about the major drivers of change and growth in contemporary entertainment.

In today’s fast-changing business environment, those firms that want to remain competitive must also be innovative. Innovation is not simply about developing new technologies into new products or services, but in many cases, finding new models for doing business in the face of change. It often entails changing the rules of the game. Strategic Innovation demonstrates to students how to create and appropriate value using new game strategies to gain competitive advantage. The book begins with a summary of the major strategic frameworks and showing the origins of strategic innovation. Next, Afuah gives a thorough examination of contemporary strategy from an innovation standpoint, including: how to develop strategy in the face of change a detailed framework for assessing the profitability potential of a strategy or product consideration of how both for-profit and non-profit organizations can benefit from new game strategies. With a wealth of quantitative examples of successful strategies, as well as descriptive cases, Strategic Innovation will complement courses in strategy, and technology and innovation.