Business Models in the Video Game Industry

The video game industry is the industry focusing on the development, distribution and monetization of video games. This industry has grown rapidly during the 21st century and this trend continues to accelerate in the future (Ell, 2018). The video game industry has expanded and evolved through technological advancements which have allowed the industry to escalate at such a fast pace. The video game scene has extended from pure entertainment to educational, competitive and creative purposes. As technology plays a crucial role in the every-day lives of the modern society, so will the video game industry. To understand the extent of the effect that the video game industry has had we take a closer look at the core of the industry, their business models and how they operate. Business model as a concept has no unified description or model but rather works as a framework to examine the core functions of a business. Therefore, for us to gain a comprehensive idea of the industry, we focused on four centric elements of business; the offering, the customer, the infrastructure and financial viability. Through these four elements we analysed the significant factors we found during our research, affecting the operations of the video game companies. The offering includes the value proposition of the company. Regarding the value proposition, these companies work as facilitators and inspirers for the value creation. The companies attempt to funnel their resources to facilitate the co-creation of value with the customers and to inspire them utilize these resources. In game development this is seen from the continuous engagement and interaction between the developers and the customers to create value that addresses the fluctuating needs. The customer addresses the segmentation and engagement channels with the customers. The customer base is segmented based on their playing habits. The identification of separate segments allows the companies to focus their development and marketing efforts on the appropriate audience and through the right channels. The infrastructure depicts the key resources that allow the companies to facilitate the value creation process. These resources include the human knowledge and know-how to create and implement the co-created value. These resources can be internal or externally gained through various networks, strategic alliances or acquisitions. Finally, we arrive to the last section of the analysis, the financial viability. Profitability is one of the fundamental pillars for growth and successful business. It is formed as the difference of revenue and costs. Revenue is the monetization of the value delivered to the customers and costs are formed from the resources and assets used to create and deliver this value. All these elements described play a significant role in enabling the companies to facilitate and inspire the value co-creation with the customers, delivering this value to the customers and monetizing this process cost efficiently, for the companies to grow and continue their profitable operations

A short survey of discourse representation models

With the advancement of technology and the wide adoption of ontologies as knowledge representation formats, in the last decade, a handful of models were proposed for the externalization of the rhetoric and argumentation captured within scientific publications. Conceptually, most of these models share a similar representation form of the scientific publication, i.e. as a series of interconnected elementary knowledge items. The main differences are given by the terminology used, the types of rhetorical and/or argumentation relations connecting the knowledge items and the foundational theories supporting these relations. This paper analyzes the state of the art and provides a concise comparative overview of the five most prominent discourse representation models, with the goal of sketching an unified model for discourse representation

Development of a novel 3D simulation modelling system for distributed manufacturing

This paper describes a novel 3D simulation modelling system for supporting our distributed machine design and control paradigm with respect to simulating and emulating machine behaviour on the Internet. The system has been designed and implemented using Java2D and Java3D. An easy assembly concept of drag-and-drop assembly has been realised and implemented by the introduction of new connection features (unified interface assembly features) between two assembly components (modules). The system comprises a hierarchical geometric modeller, a behavioural editor, and two assemblers. During modelling, designers can combine basic modelling primitives with general extrusions and integrate CAD geometric models into simulation models. Each simulation component (module) model can be visualised and animated in VRML browsers. It is reusable. This makes machine design re-configurable and flexible. A case study example is given to support our conclusions

An extensible manufacturing resource model for process integration

Driven by industrial needs and enabled by process technology and information technology, enterprise integration is rapidly shifting from information integration to process integration to improve overall performance of enterprises. Traditional resource models are established based on the needs of individual applications. They cannot effectively serve process integration which needs resources to be represented in a unified, comprehensive and flexible way to meet the needs of various applications for different business processes. This paper looks into this issue and presents a configurable and extensible resource model which can be rapidly reconfigured and extended to serve for different applications. To achieve generality, the presented resource model is established from macro level and micro level. A semantic representation method is developed to improve the flexibility and extensibility of the model

Cosmological consequences in the framework of generalized Rastall theory of gravity

The paper deals with generalized Rastall theory of gravity and its cosmological consequences in the background of homogeneous and isotropic flat FLRW model with perfect fluid as the matter context. The model shows a non singular era (emergent scenario) at the early phase of expansion for a particular choice of the Rastall parameter. Also the model finds to be equivalent to the particle creation mechanism in Einstein gravity in the framework of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Universal thermodynamics is briefly presented and it is found that the entropy function in Rastall theory is the usual Bekenstein entropy and there is no correction to it. Finally, a complete cosmic history starting from inflation to late time acceleration is presented for suitable choices of the Rastall parameter

Leadership and capability development and deployment in the New Zealand State Service

This article describes the design during 2013 of a model and implementation principles of a leadership and capability development and deployment (LCDD) model for the state services system. In this process, an initial prototype model was developed to describe a desired future state. It was informed by the best traditions of state services leadership development, together with models used by the world’s best companies, such as Procter & Gamble, for leadership development (Filipkowski and Donlon, 2013). The model was then enhanced based on our research in other jurisdictions, including Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, and co-creation with stakeholders. This is further discussed in the article. Dr Mike Pratt is Professor of Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Waikato, and a professional director and business adviser. Dr Murray Horn is a former Secretary to the Treasury of New Zealand and bank chief executive, and a professional director and business adviser