Games in the Platform Economy: Steam's Tangled Markets 9781529223064

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Games in the Platform Economy: Steam’s Tangled Markets
Copyright information
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Table
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: Steam’s Tangled Markets
Steam’s tangled markets
Platforms in the domain of digital games
Business models of game platforms
The role of player-driven economies
An economic-sociological approach to markets
Commodification of economic action?
Reading guide
2 Platform Configurations in Gaming
Arcades, consoles, and digital storefronts
The platform in platforms
Platforms as programmable architectures
Platforms as multi-sided markets
Platforms as infrastructures and organizational forms
Platform practices
Platform configurations in the contemporary game industry
Platform configurations and business models in gaming
Boxed content and retail
Games as a service and the subscription-based business model
Mobile gaming and free-to-play
Player-driven economies and business models in online gaming
Platforms, business models, and market orders
3 Economic Sociology and the Analysis of Platforms as Markets
The market in platform studies
Approaches to markets within classic economics and economic sociology
The rise of the market society and the notion of embeddedness
Markets as institutions: stability and change
Tangled markets
Multi-sided markets and tangled markets
The analysis of the Steam platform as a tangled market
4 Valve Corporation and the Steam Platform
Valve Corporation: incumbent or challenger?
Storefront, social network, or tangled market?
5 Steam’s Business Model
The Steam platform
The conversion of affective value into market value
A diachronic accordance analysis of the Steam platform’s development
From download client to tangled market
The continuous expansion of the Steam store
The monetization of playbour
Expanding the scope of economic transactions
The monetization of player interaction as a process of ‘disembedment’
6 Shaping Market Interactions on the Steam Platform
Critical analyses of digital platform architectures
The Steam platform documentation as a rhetorical device
Key features of the Steam business model
The Steam store and its preferred business models
Marketplaces on Steam
All roads lead through the Steam Wallet
7 Economic Actors on the Steam Platform
A few words on method
Market power or marketplace power? Economic actors in the game market
Economic actors in the Steam market order
The business emphases of market actors on Steam
The steam market order as a solution to the competition problem
The Steam platform as market governance
8 Player Trading beyond Steam
The exchange of game items beyond the Steam platform
‘Powered by Steam, not affiliated with Valve Corp.’
Steam’s economic interests in extra-platform practices
Monetary networks and money at the margins
The skin ecosystem as a monetary network
9 User Monetization and Value Creation in Tangled Markets
Commodification and the audience commodity
The audience commodity and audience work in tangled markets
Concluding remarks: the platformization of peer-to-peer transactions and the regulation of tangled markets
Notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
References
Index

Polecaj historie

Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy 9781529226560, 9781529226546, 9781529226577

Once hidden behind the veils of entrepreneurship, it is now clear that platforms are reshaping the world of work, and Am

240 83 2MB Read more

Platform Strategies: A Guidebook for Entrepreneurs in the Platform Economy 9780429956201, 9781138590700, 9781032461694, 9780429490873, 0429956207

Over the past decade, platforms have spread through many industries and generated an increasing share of the global econ

171 19 3MB Read more

Platform Strategies: A Guidebook for Entrepreneurs in the Platform Economy 1138590703, 9781138590700

Over the past decade, platforms have spread through many industries and generated an increasing share of the global econ

444 39 11MB Read more

Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organization 9781529226577

Once hidden behind the veils of entrepreneurship, it is now clear that platforms are reshaping the world of work, and Am

240 104 4MB Read more

Legacies, Logics, Logistics: Essays in the Anthropology of the Platform Economy 9780226326900

Legacies, Logics, Logistics brings together a set of essays, written both before and after the financial crisis of 2007–

188 89 1MB Read more

Building Games with DragonRuby: A comprehensive guide to shipping cross-platform games with ease

A free, online book on how to make games with Ruby using DragonRuby Game Toolkit by Brett Chalupa and the DragonRuby com

277 28 4MB Read more

The Current Economy: Electricity Markets and Techno-Economics 9781503628229

Electricity is a quirky commodity: more often than not, it cannot be stored, easily transported, or imported from overse

176 98 3MB Read more

The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy: Institutions, Markets, and Growth in the City-States

1,511 97 10MB Read more

Work in the New Economy: Flexible Labor Markets in Silicon Valley [1st ed.] 0631232494, 9780631232490

This book contributes to our understanding of the transformation of work in the information economy, through a detailed

782 97 2MB Read more

Exchange and Markets in Early Economic Development: Informal Economy in the Three New Guineas 9781800739697

The idea of an informal economy emerged from, and is a critique of, the ideology of ‘economic development’. It originate

190 21 13MB Read more