Abstract
There has been a shift in the home video game industry in which software developers have increasingly decided to create new games for multiple platforms and allow gamers to play with other gamers on competing platforms, otherwise known as cross-platform gaming. When creating a new game, software developers have a choice to either make the game exclusive (released on a single platform) or multihome (released on multiple platforms). This paper explores how platforms and developer profit are effected by the introduction of cross-platform gaming and the increased use of multihoming by developers. I hypothesize that cross-platform gaming has made the developer side more competitive, which can be seen by lower prices for gamers, an increase in profit for larger developers and a decrease in the profit of smaller developers in the market. I test this hypothesis by defining a gamer demand for hardware model looking at eight consoles between generations 6 and 8. I then define a developer profit model that uses a sample of 2,165 video games between the years of 2000-2019, and find statistically significant results supporting my hypothesis.
Advisor
Tian, Huiting
Second Advisor
Mellizo, Phil
Department
Business Economics
Recommended Citation
Bellovich, Matthew, "The Effects of Cross-Platform Gaming and Multihoming in a Two-Sided Market: A Focus on the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Generation of the Video Game Industry" (2020). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 9001.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/9001
Disciplines
Business
Keywords
Industrial Organization, Two-sided markets, video games, cross platform gaming
Publication Date
2020
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2020 Matthew Bellovich