2015
Company
Documents about 2015
Stories and Changing Social Norms: Representation of Gender in Video Games from 2007 to 2017
This study examines how gender is represented in three major video game franchises between 2007 and 2017, arguing that changes in game narratives reflect a broader shift in North American sociocultural attitudes toward gender.
- The study argues that gender representation in three major franchises (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Uncharted) shifted between 2007 and 2017, moving from overt sexism, sexual violence, and objectification toward greater female agency and inclusivity in later installments.
- Dragon Age: Origins is described as containing overt sexism, sexual violence, and objectification, while Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition present more agency and inclusivity for female characters.
- Because the three franchises were built by different developers, the author treats their parallel trajectories as evidence of a broader North American cultural pattern rather than studio-specific quirks.
Brazil Games Industry Report 2022
Brazil's games industry has grown rapidly and is maturing, though it remains highly concentrated and constrained by funding, tax, and talent problems.
- Brazil is the 12th largest games market globally and the leader in Latin America, generating approximately USD 2.3 billion in 2021.
- The industry has experienced rapid expansion, with a 102% increase in active studios since 2018 and a 336% revenue increase in USD since 2015.
- The sector is shifting toward original intellectual property, with 93% of companies now focusing on proprietary IP rather than a pure service-provider model.
Developer Satisfaction Survey 2019: Industry Trends and Future Outlook Report
The 2019 game industry landscape reflects a period of significant transition, marked by a tension between technological innovation and systemic workplace challenges.
- 90 percent of industry professionals project moderate to considerable growth for the sector over the next three years, driven primarily by investments in PC and console platforms.
- Nearly 50 percent of the game development workforce supports unionization as a mechanism to address professional grievances and improve workplace standards.
- The industry is experiencing a decline in job satisfaction and growing pessimism regarding its current trajectory despite a strong focus on game design and storytelling.
IndieCade: A History
Celia Pearce's "IndieCade: A History" is a narrative account, written from the perspective of a founder and scholar, of the IndieCade festival and the broader independent game movement it helped shape.
- IndieCade launched its inaugural event, the IndieCade Showcase @ E3, in July 2007 with funding from the Entertainment Software Association, presenting curated indie games within the larger expo.
- Academia played a foundational role in indie game criticism and scholarship, with University-driven book series and journals such as Well Played helping establish video game studies as a discipline.
- Game mechanics as a vehicle for meaning gained prominence through works like Darfur is Dying (adapting Frogger-style mechanics) and Brenda Romero's Train (2009), and through the NSF-funded Values at Play research project.
Embracer Group Acquires Palindrome Interactive
Embracer Group has finalized the full acquisition of Palindrome Interactive, a Skövde-based strategy game developer, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Amplifier.
- Embracer Group has acquired the remaining 50 percent stake in Skövde-based developer Palindrome Interactive through its subsidiary, Amplifier.
- The transaction includes an upfront payment of 21.5 million SEK in cash and Embracer B shares, plus 20 million SEK in performance-based earnouts tied to net contribution targets over the next decade.
- Palindrome Interactive is a 14-person studio specializing in single-player strategy, empire management, and turn-based combat.
Report on App Categories
This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the non-gaming mobile application market, focusing on shifting market shares, revenue performance, and lifetime value (LTV) across various categories.
- Video apps, led by YouTube, Twitch, and BIGO LIVE, represent the highest growth category in Western markets as of early 2020.
- Video-on-demand services account for 20% of total in-app purchase revenue in Eastern markets.
- Asian markets demonstrate a higher density of apps with high average lifetime value (LTV) compared to Western markets.
Photogrammetry for Game Environments 2014-2019: What Happened Since The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Between 2014 and 2019, photogrammetry in game development moved from an experimental practice to a standardized, team-based workflow, and the document traces this maturation across 26 published games plus seven in development.
- Between 2014 and 2019, photogrammetry in game development moved from experimental practice to a standardized, team-based workflow, examined across 26 published games plus seven in development, with indie and AAA developers roughly evenly represented.
- Adoption grew sharply after 2017, and developers consistently report gains in detail and realism plus reduced production time, though those savings typically exclude the costs of scanning and processing.
- Photogrammetry is concentrated in natural assets such as landscapes, vegetation, and rocks, while man-made environments and modular assets are rarely scanned and architecture is mostly limited to small structures and key locations.
Slovak Game Industry Annual Report 2020/2021
Slovakia's game industry is young, fragmented, and growing, and the 2020/2021 annual report maps it through statistics, company profiles, and a survey of the surrounding support ecosystem.
- Slovak game development includes studios like Tater Games (founded 2019, 7 employees, released Nunu Spirits, Cyber Forge), Atomic Realm (founded 2019, 4 employees, released Magnet Run, developing Squabble), and Fatbot Games (founded 2015, 6 employees, released Vaporum).
- Larger studios include Pixel Federation (founded 2007, 220 employees, titles like Diggy's Adventure, TrainStation 2) and Inlogic (founded 2005, 60 employees, titles like Football Championship 2020, Zombie Hill Race 3).
- Several studios focus on specific niches: Incidental Minds (founded 2018, 6 employees) develops 2D illustrated story-driven and strategic games, while Neutraworks (founded 2018, 6 employees) is an independent studio.
Gaming Spotlight 2018 Review
The 2018 Gaming Spotlight Review analyzes the global gaming landscape, focusing on the shifting dynamics between mobile, PC, and console platforms.
- Mobile gaming solidified its market dominance in 2018, with consumer spending exceeding the combined totals of PC, home consoles, and handheld consoles by nearly 20%.
- Mobile games accounted for 75% of total consumer spend on the iOS App Store and Google Play, despite representing only 35% of total app downloads.
- The Asia-Pacific region accounted for over 55% of global mobile game spending in 2018, maintaining its lead despite a nine-month freeze on new game approvals in China.
Analog Game Studies: Volume 3
"Analog Game Studies: Volume 3" examines tabletop and analog games through the lenses of culture, ethics, emotion, and design, with the central argument that games are complex social and affective systems whose meanings extend well beyond their formal rules.
- The volume's central argument is that games are complex social and affective systems whose meanings extend well beyond their formal rules, with 'affective structuring' (aesthetics, roles, and social dynamics) treated as essential to understanding play.
- The Gift of Food was co-developed with Pacific Northwest Native communities as a culturally responsive tool for intergenerational knowledge transfer and language revitalization.
- Several essays critique colonial and orientalist themes in games including Goa, Navegador, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' Oriental Adventures, while analyses of Catan, the COIN series, Troubled Lands, and cooperative titles examine how mechanics produce distinct emotional networks such as meaningful sacrifice and enjoyable failure.
Beyond the Recipe: A Critical Analysis of Craft in Games
This paper examines craft as represented in digital games, arguing that existing taxonomies of game crafting systems fail to capture the values and principles that define craft in the real world.
- The paper argues that existing game crafting taxonomies, such as Grow et al. (2017) and King (2015), are mechanics-first and therefore miss the underlying values of real-world craft.
- The central thesis is that digital representation tends to reduce craft to recipe-like mechanics, stripping away material specificity, communal practice, and social dimensions that give craft its meaning.
- Feminist and cultural critiques are drawn on to note that craft is often valued below art and is associated with women's labor and marginalized makers.
The Impacts of Live Streaming on the Video Game Industry
This study examines how live streaming platform Twitch is reshaping the video game industry, arguing that its influence now extends across game consumption, production, marketing, and reviewing.
- Twitch's total viewing grew from 292 billion minutes in 2016 to over 350 billion in 2017, and Amazon's acquisition of the platform for nearly a billion dollars underscores its commercial significance.
- Live streaming can drive rapid visibility and sales for games that would otherwise remain obscure, as shown by Rocket League, which climbed from the 165th most-watched game to the top five within a month of its 2015 launch.
- The influence of Twitch extends across game consumption, production, marketing, and reviewing, with streaming of new releases emerging as a viable alternative to established game-reviewing paradigms, though with both advantages and drawbacks.