Smartphone chronic gaming consumption and positive coping practice

Purpose: Chronic consumption practice has been greatly accelerated by mobile, interactive and smartphone gaming technology devices. This study explores how chronic consumption of smartphone gaming produces positive coping practice. Design/methodology/approach: Underpinned by cognitive framing theory, empirical insights from eleven focus groups (n=62) reveal how smartphone gaming enhances positive coping amongst gamers and non-gamers. Findings: The findings reveal how the chronic consumption of games allows technology to act with privileged agency that resolves tensions between individuals and collectives. Consumption narratives of smartphone games, even when play is limited, lead to the identification of three cognitive frames through which positive coping processes operate: (a) the market generated frame, (b) the social being frame, and (c) the citizen frame. Research limitations/implications: This paper adds to previous research by providing an understanding of positive coping practice in the smartphone chronic gaming consumption. Originality/value: In smartphone chronic gaming consumption, cognitive frames enable positive coping by fostering appraisal capacities in which individuals confront, hegemony, culture and alterity-morality concerns

Crossing the river by feeling for stones: a new approach to exporting creative content to China?

We have all heard the statistics about China\u27s stellar growth and the large market for UK creative industries. But the trade numbers paint a different picture, suggesting that the UK is punching below its weight. This is not altogether surprising. Doing business in emerging markets like China is fraught with risk and uncertainty which can overwhelm even the most canny operations.  This paper examines what more can be done and highlights the novel role that digital social networks could play in overcoming these obstacles and helping UK creative businesses unlock export opportunities to China. ------------------- We have all heard the statistics. About how China is forecast to overtake the US to be the largest economy in the world by 2027.1 How China already has 277 million mobile web users, of which 45 per cent use their handsets to access music and 21 per cent video games.2 How more than 300 million Chinese are studying English.3 How Chinese e–commerce is predicted to triple by 2015, when sales could hit $420 billion – 20 per cent higher than the projection for the US market.4 And how, at 67,300, China sends more students to UK universities than any other country in the world.5 These dizzying numbers should mean there is a particularly large market for the UK’s creative industries, right? The trade statistics suggest not. According to UNCTAD, in 2010 the UK’s share of creative goods exports to China was just 1.4 per cent, compared with a 4.8 per cent share in world creative goods exports.6 UK exports of creative goods to China totalled$140 million, lower than not only Japan ($900 million), the US ($800 million) and Singapore ($520 million), but also France ($224 million), Germany ($325 million) and Italy ($474 million).7 With the exception of Japan and Germany, the value of UK exports of creative goods grew at a slower rate than in all these countries between 2002 and 2010. These trade statistics are not without their problems – they exclude all creative services, for example – nonetheless they indicate that the UK’s creative industries are punchingbelow their weight in Chinese markets.   &nbsp

Product Launch in a Declining Environment: The Blu-ray Disc – Opportunities and Struggle

Increasingly ICT-based virtual products are challenging physical products and markets. Obsolescence has become a real effect for an augmented number of established industries due to the facilitation of access, consumption, and permanent, immediate availability, which dematerialised products provide. Once again, Schumpeter’s Wind of Creative Destruction intensifies organisations’ permanent struggle for survival (1950). This paper presents long-term research in the optical disc industry, which has presented the optical disc format of Blu-ray as its latest innovation. It is an example of how an established industry launches a new product for finding new opportunities, but fights desperately against market resistance. The degree of innovation, the Blu-ray represents, may not be sufficient in the overarching battle of the physical place versus the virtual space (Kotler et al. 2002, Lam. 2004, Lamont et al. 1993, Scardigli et al. 1988). As the US market research institute In-Stat highlights, the optical disc market has declined for the 10th year in sequence (Kaufhold. 2010, IFPI. 2010). Sufficient evidence is available that the replication industry of optical discs may be confronted with an endgame scenario. The market climate may already be too hostile to support this industry’s desire for a renewal of consumers’ acceptance of the physical product, here the Blu-ray disc, and to create new market opportunities in the struggle against the industry’s potential obsolescence (Harrigan et al. 1983). Despite strong efforts of promotion and powerful market approaches, the Blu-ray disc could not find inroads to markets yet making this format sustainably successful. Evidence is that after a short period of time, Blu-ray discs’ available manufacturing capacities outperform consumers’ demand by >30%, consumer and replication prices fall sharply and many of the Home Entertainment’s content providers have little or no use for this format being a commodity and based on mass production (dvd-intelligence. 2010a, Kaufhold. 2010, Killer-Korff. 2010). Therefore, as research among the replication industry indicates, it presently seems more as though the Blu-ray format may not fulfil this industry’s needs and, with reference to Abernathy et al.’s research, may not lead to the renewal of industrial dynamics in a declining marketplace (1983, 1984). Further explanation for reasons can be found in the theories of innovation based on Utterback’s, Christensen’s and Christensen et al.’s studies of disruptive and discontinuous innovation (1996, 2003, 2003, 2004). Following the paper presented at the Sixteenth Annual South Dakota International Business Conference, this paper presents research about the Blu-ray format’s market problems. The introduction of the Transilience Organisation Innovation Map provided a conceptual approach for the initial explanation of the underlying reasons (Oestreicher. 2009). Research among European replication firms since concludes for Blu-ray that innovation in technology alone is not sufficient, when innovation’s second stream of market linkages is involved (Abernathy et al. 1983, 1984). The paper presents explanations, why the Blu-ray disc may not be sufficiently strong to support the replication industry in overcoming the odds impacting their strategic opportunities in a declining and eventually disruptive environment (Lamont et al. 1993, Yoo. 1992). The research methods applied are grounded theory and case study (Goulding. 2002, Charmaz. 2009, Eisenhardt. 1989, Davies. 2006). The overall intention of this long-term research is to contribute to a theory, which may also be relevant for other industries, like the publishing industry, whose struggle against dematerialisation of content is presently starting (Picard. 2003). Key Words: Radical vs. marginal innovation, Ideal Final Result, endgame strategies, theories of innovation, Blu-ra

A manifesto for the creative economy

The UK\u27s creative economy is one of its great national strengths, historically deeply rooted and accounting for around one-tenth of the whole economy. It provides jobs for 2.5 million people – more than in financial services, advanced manufacturing or construction – and in recent years, this creative workforce has grown four times faster than the workforce as a whole. But behind this success lies much disruption and business uncertainty, associated with digital technologies. Previously profitable business models have been swept away, young companies from outside the UK have dominated new internet markets, and some UK creative businesses have struggled to compete. UK policymakers too have failed to keep pace with developments in North America and parts of Asia. But it is not too late to refresh tired policies. This manifesto sets out our 10-point plan to bolster one of the UK\u27s fastest growing sectors

Legal, Economic, and Cultural Aspects of file sharing

This contribution seeks to identify the short- and long-term economic and cultural effects of file sharing on music, films and games, while taking into account the legal context and policy developments. The short-term implications examined concern direct costs and benefits to society, whereas the long-term impact concerns changes in the industry’s business models as well as in cultural diversity and the accessibility of content. It observes that the proliferation of digital distribution networks combined with the availability of digital technology among consumers has broken the entertainment industries’ control over the access to their products. Only part of the decline in music sales can be attributed to file sharing. Despite the losses for the music industry, the increased accessibillity of culture renders the overall welfare effects of file sharing robustly positive. As a consequence the entertainment industries, particularly the music industry, have to explore new models to sustain their busines.filesharing, downloading/uploading, entertainment industry, cultural analysis, economic analysis, legal and policy analysis.

"Beyond copyright": law, conflicts and the quest for practical solutions

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CREATe 2012-2016: Impact on society, industry and policy through research excellence and knowledge exchange

On the eve of the CREATe Festival May 2016, the Centre published this legacy report (edited by Kerry Patterson & Sukhpreet Singh with contributions from consortium researchers)