Game Industry

In this interview by Yujia Yao, I talk about the current state of the Japanese gaming industry within its cultural and economic context. Interview questions include topics such as: the general decline of the Japanese game industry in global markets, the place of Nintendo in the industrial landscape, Pokemon Go, the mobile gaming market, Virtual Reality, and cultural influences.

This book is about the three identities of the videogame, the gamer, and Game Studies. I write that there are no definitive truths but rather discourses and constructions; ideas, actions, beliefs, and practices related to videogames are discourses that merge and shape our perception of videogames as an area of study of its own right. These discursive responses meet and clash creating what we call truths, which are temporary and negotiable.

This perspective is inspired by Foucauldian ideas and present few questions about videogame-related identities in and outside of academe. Does Game Studies have a conceptual core? What makes game studies difficult to be disciplined in academe? What do we learn from the scholarly and popular discourses on videogames that would help understand the identity questions related to games?

I go on to describe what makes the videogame identity according to game studies: aesthetics, fictions, meaning-making, performance, transformation, etc. and what makes it difficult for game studies being an open market of ideas and an academic "un-discipline". This leads me to the gamer's identity: an aficionado first, and a connoisseur of fictional worlds.

The goal of this article is to add a complementary perspective to the study of social network sites by surveying how the political economy of social media platforms relates to the structure of free-to-play games in their commodity form. Drawing on the theory of multisided markets and critical political economy, this article surveys the political economy of game apps and investigates how it is symbiotically related to the technological and economic logic underlying connective platforms operated by Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. These social media platforms operate app stores that sustain the transformation of games as fixed, physically distributed products that follow a transaction logic, into digitally distributed, freely accessible, or “free-to-play” apps. Through a case study of the popular casual game Candy Crush Saga it is contended that the connective properties of social media platforms affect the form and format of game apps as cultural commodities. Candy Crush Saga developer King Digital Entertainment has been able to attract hundreds of millions of players and build a business model that combines the commodification of virtual items, connectivity, user attention, user data, and play. It is argued that the free-to-play commodity form comprises three commodity types: the product commodity, the “prosumer commodity,” and the player commodity. Furthermore, Candy Crush Saga’s commodity form is structured by a platformed modality of cultural production and circulation and therefore embedded in the political economy of its host platform.

The computer game industry has flourished to become the world’s largest entertainment, one of the problem students playing with electronic games for long time without thinking about negative affections especially on their GPA. In this paper to present impact of computer games on creativity and academic achievement of basic school students, we proposed a questionnaires form for 100 students at basic schools. The result of our research explained that the students playing between 1-3 hours per day with electronic games their GPA not decreased or very few which is -0.22% per hour, in same time students that playing more than 3 hours per day their GPA decreased more which is -2.41% per hour. The result help the students to play with electronic games carefully, because if they playing for few hour not return negative affection and sometimes helped them to opining their mind and study, but if playing for more than three hours most time return negative affection for their GPA.

Como citar esse relatório
Relatório de pesquisa do II Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais, conforme previsto na Licitação Lic 4/2018-PJ/914BRZ4013, financiada por meio do Acordo de Cooperação Técnica firmado
entre o Ministério da Cultura, a Agência Brasileira de Cooperação e a UNESCO – Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura.
Relatório completo:
SAKUDA, Luiz Ojima; FORTIM, Ivelise (Orgs.). II Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018. Disponível em: <http://www.tinyurl.com/censojogosdigitais>. Acesso em: 20 nov. 2018.
Capítulos do relatório:
SAKUDA. L. O.; FORTIM, I.; ROLIM, A. JANILLE, E. Perfil da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais
(IBJD). IN: SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
FORTIM, I; OLIVEIRA, E. A.; ROLIM, A; CARDOSO, M. V.; SAKUDA, L. O. Considerações sobre semelhanças e diferenças entre desenvolvedoras, organizações de apoio e profissionais autônomos de jogos digitais. In: SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
CARDOSO, M. V. Análise de grau de Internacionalização  desenvolvedoras brasileiras – Comparativo com dados da pesquisa Apex-Brasil. In: SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria
Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
ZAMBON, P. S. SAKUDA, L. O. Visão Geral das Políticas Públicas para Jogos Digitais no Brasil In:SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
SAKUDA, L. O.; FORTIM, I.; AZEVEDO, T.; HARRIS, J. Análise do Mercado Brasileiro de Jogos Digitais. In: SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
OLIVEIRA, E. A. Vocabulário técnico. In: SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
PIRRO, R. Diretório das Desenvolvedoras e Associações Brasileiras de Jogos Digitais 2018 In: SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
Sumário executivo:
SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2o Censo da Indústria Brasileira de Jogos Digitais: Sumário Executivo. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018
Sumário executivo em inglês:
SAKUDA. L. O; FORTIM, I. (Org.). 2nd Census of the Brazilian Digital Games Industry – Executive Summary. Ministério da Cultura: Brasília, 2018

A collaborative project that focuses on the mostly female Capcom Sound Team. The Japanese game development company Capcom (CAPsule COMputers), is known for some of the most popular action arcade games of the 80s and early 90s, including  Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins (1985), Commando (1985), Bionic Commando (1987), Final Fight (1989), Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts (1988), and Street Fighter II (1991), with mainly male players in mind. The composition and sound design work by this collective of female composers influenced a host of game composers through their pioneering work on early arcade hardware. Yet in versions of games ported from the arcade to home consoles and computers, their work was left uncredited. Popular recognition for their composition and sound design work has been relatively slow, due to a number of factors that include the use of pseudonyms and the company’s team-focused crediting policy, as well as the routine ex-scription of women in a male-dominated game culture where, as Kocurek puts it, young competitive “technomasculinity” is foregrounded. 
To understand how the original composers for Capcom’s arcade games were credited, in comparison to the producers responsible for porting their musical compositions for home play, we focus on three examples: Commando (1985), Bionic Commando (1987) and Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (1988). These were first created for Capcom’s 1980s arcade game library and then ported for home computers, the Commodore 64, Nintendo NES and ZX Spectrum. Resonating with Nooney’s archeological approach to gender politics in video game history,  our proposed presentation is based on an excavation of game archives and game versions in order to evidence how the composers of Capcom’s successful arcade game titles found themselves in a position of invisibility, which is quite persistent and only sporadically corrected and updated. As Collins explains, an archaeological approach to game sound can achieve an understanding that circumvents, and can be critical of, dominant historical discourse.  The capture of data for this chapter was performed by carefully checking for the credit information, including research of online game credit databases such as the VGMDb.net, which provides an archive of Game Soundtrack Album credits; MobyGames.com, a site dedicated to video game credits; and The Cutting Room Floor, a site dedicated to preserving information on material that is present inside the game data, but not normally accessible or used in game play. In order to review and check the data obtained, extensive use was also made of longplay video content (full gameplay videos).
Our conclusion is not only that game industry histories need revisions that take into account hidden and marginalised identities of video game creators, but also that there is an urgent need to improve the protection of creators in the game industry, perhaps even a need for standardisation of crediting practices, comparable to the film industry. This is especially pertinent for remixed or arranged in-game music which carries over into the game releases themselves.

Los juegos son una actividad estructurada que necesita de autores para crearlos. A lo largo de la historia la figura del autor ha sido totalmente desconocida por diferentes factores. Durante la antigüedad, los juegos eran propiedad de una sociedad, de una cultura; el nacimiento de la imprenta convirtió a los impresores en editores, ilustradores y autores al mismo tiempo; durante la revolución industrial los juegos eran fabricados. Todo esto ha cambiado en la actualidad con el nacimiento de los hobbygames y los eurogames. Este artículo intenta dar un poco de luz sobre la figura del diseñador de juegos de mesa modernos, empezando por una pequeña aproximación histórica de su papel, esperando que sirva de base para futuras investigaciones.

The aim of this book is to deconstruct, theorize and critique the development and circulation of console games. With the launch of the Xbox 360 (2005) and the Playstation 3 (2006), the advent of the seventh console cycle afforded a new type of cultural commodity: The 'next gen' Triple-A videogame. It is argued that the Triple-A game's commodity form, also known as the blockbuster game, hit game, or core game, is emblematic for a specific modality of cultural production in the game industry. Drawing on political economy, critical theory, media economics and innovation studies, this book theorizes how the forces of capitalism shape the console game's commodity form, how Triple-A games work as products and which purpose they serve for game publishers and platform owners Microsoft and Sony. The book investigates how the blockbuster game is institutionally embedded, how game software is integrated with game hardware and how the commodity form is at the same time culturally defined and shaped both by consumer and industry practices.

The international success of Japanese game design provides an example of the invisibility of female game composers, as well as of gendered identification in game music production and sound design. Yoko Shimomura, the female composer who produced the iconic soundtrack for the 1991 arcade game, Street Fighter II (Capcom 1991), seems to have been invisible to game developers and music producers, which is partly due to the way in which the game is credited as a team effort. Regardless of their personal gender identity, game composers respond to themed briefs by drawing on transnational musical ideas and gendered stereotypes that resonate with the Global Popular. Game music, as imagined as suitable for hyper-masculine game arcades, seems to draw on a masculinist aesthetic developed in Hollywood compositions. In turn, Street Fighter II’s music and the competitive game culture of arcade fighting games has been interwoven with masculinist music scenes of hip-hop and grime. The discussion of...

The international success of Japanese game design provides an example of the invisibility of female game composers, as well as of gendered identification in game music production and sound design. Yoko Shimomura, the female composer who produced the iconic soundtrack for the 1991 arcade game, Street Fighter II (Capcom 1991), seems to have been invisible to game developers and music producers, which is partly due to the way in which the game is credited as a team effort. Regardless of their personal gender identity, game composers respond to themed briefs by

The concept of emergence--that a certain thing may emerge from several distinct (and not necessarily related) parts, which is different, larger in scope, and mostly originally unintended or expected--exists in many fields such as Philosophy, Information Science, and biology. With respect to the modern video game, emergence can potentially manifest as emergent narrative and/or emergent gameplay. Furthermore, emergence in games can potentially manifest through true technological, procedurally-generated gameplay and/or a game design which encourages emergence from the game elements within the mind of the player.
In this paper, we engage in a critical discussion about what it means for an interactive video game to have emergence. Firstly, we will be briefly discussing what emergence means to other scientific disciplines, and in doing so delineate specifically how we will be using the term "Emergent" in reference to interactive video games. We then frame the discussion of Emergence in games by considering a range of recent video game examples, and a close critical look at the indie games Papers, Please and Gone Home. From these analyses, we propose a concept of "Player-side emergence in games," in which emergence in the form of narrative is expressible and observable in games as the result of the current technological capabilities of games, which relies not on the game software itself, but rather upon the complex system of the human mind for reconstruction of the game experience and a subsequent expression of emergence.  In this proposed concept, the constituent narrative pieces offered by a game can be expressed emergently as a unified, overall game narrative experience by the player mind. Based on this concept, we propose that emergence in a game need not wait or rely upon the advent of a truly, technology-based procedurally-generated platform, but rather can be an expression of player-side experiential reconstruction. We conclude that emergent narrative between video game and player can manifest so long as a human player can be encouraged via the game's mechanics towards an overall narrative reconstruction whose blueprint does not wholly originate from the source game, and we also contend that such an emergent design consideration can be potentially useful for designers who are trying to deal with the trade-off of Ludo-Narrative Dissonance in their games.

(This paper was selected by the program committee as a Meaningful Play 2014 Top Paper. It will be submitted to the Meaningful Play 2014 Special Issue of the Journal of Games and Culture. Due to the copyright requirements of the journal, only the abstract is available in the conference proceedings.)

This paper will contextualize the occupational ideology of
game journalism by providing a brief introduction to the
political economy of game publications. The role of various
industry actors (e.g. game publishers, PR agents and brand
managers) will be positioned against those of the peripheral
industry (e.g. critics, journalists, and editors). Because the
game industry is the principal advertiser for many game
publications, and because of its tight grip on the most
valuable source material, i.e. (early) access to games and
restricted insider information, the job of a game journalist
consists in many ways of balancing acts between a
perceived loyalty to the reading public and a dependency on
industry material.

Within the video game development aspect, rejecting financial support from any publisher to keep up freedom against mainstream conglomerates named as “Independent video game” even though its definition is open to interpretations. This article proposes a field study of production and distribution of the digital video game industry to see whether independent video game development is an independent alternative to mainstream or well-planned sub-part of capitalist structure that established globally by very same conglomerates.
A company based identification of production tools, distribution systems, and manufactured hardware’s that used by independent developers of digital video games gives us an insight of power relations within the industry. Best-evidence synthesis based research of major digital video game developers, “free” video game development engines, leading digital distribution systems, developer based investigation of most played video game, and considering biggest acquisitions of the industry provides us a clear view of political economy.
Conglomerates claim that they are providing free production tools and distribution systems to support independent digital video game development. This article identifies power relations within the industry to understand whether conglomerates support independent development, or exploit them as a risk-free research & development service.

This book is a collection of research and concept papers developed as a result of the Games and Innovation (GaIn) and Games Industry Innovation Processes (GIIP) research projects. The GaIn research project (January 2009-March 2011) was designed to study game industry design, innovation practices, and playful innovation. Understanding creativity as a domain-specific phenomenon, the objective for GaIn was to map the domain of game design as an organic practice with specific formal restrictions in order to create methodologies and tools for generating, refining, evaluating, and managing game ideas in a systematic manner. The GIIP project (March 2010-March 2011) studied the innovation processes of Finnish game companies and supplemented the research goals of GaIn. These two projects have provided answers to many of our initial research questions, as well as initiated several new directions for future research.

The project was divided into several different mini-studies, where rich data was gathered by combining traditional and experimental research methodologies. We conducted several interview studies and surveys, utilized drawing exercises and protocol study approaches, wrote literature reviews, organized game design workshops and events such as game jams, and engaged in our own design processes. The results presented here are a valuable contribution to game design theory, and provide our commentary on the topics of idea generation, innovation, design, and management within the game industry. An especially important part of the project has been to provide concepts and prototypes of tools, which contribute to the present design practices.

The talk focuses on describing how the utopian impulse manifests itself in both the game industry and design as well as video games--specifically the genres of the video game utopia and dystopia (and their sub-genres). It will illuminate the diversity of these genres in the negotiation of hope and scrutinise how utopian and dystopian games involve players in it. This typology will thus explore the potentiality of sub-genres like the ‘classical utopia’ (which details the potentiality of a near perfect future to criticise our current present); the ‘critical utopia’ (which explores cautious and more difficult, uncertain ways towards Utopia); the ‘classical dystopia’ (which involves players in nightmarish gameworlds in which hope is negotiated only in the player’s imagination); the ‘critical dystopia’ (where players are confronted with the task to work towards Utopia within a nightmarish gameworld, but where failure to attain it remains a constant companion; and the ‘anti-utopia’ (a genre that can only reluctantly be included in the utopian spectrum, for it works against the utopian impulse and towards a solidification of the status quo).

2019 marked ten years since the publication of Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter's Games of Empire, which has become a seminal book in videogame cultural criticism. Ten years later, there is still a pressing need for cultural and materialist criticism of the politics of production within game studies. In putting together this Special Issue, our hope is to identify new developments in the games industry and academia that are emblematic of 21st century capitalism. Just as Games of Empire popularised critical political-economic perspectives ten years ago, we encourage others, as the authors in this issue did, to continue and maintain investigations into questions of ownership, privatized property, coercive class relations, military operations, and radical struggle. Such analyses are necessary: not only to trace, but also to open up new directions in game culture and academia for decades to come.

Consisting of several high profile cases of harassment and threats against female game developers, the ongoing Gamergate controversy has resulted in widespread popular media discussions around the roles and representations of women in the game industry. Industry leaders, scholars, and educators have become increasingly more invested in discovering how we can support women and other underrepresented populations in succeeding in the game industry. While there is extensive research exploring the gender divide in technology fields broadly (Barker & Aspray, 2008; Cohoon & Aspray, 2008), there is surprisingly little research on women in the game industry specifically. Most of that research takes as its focus issues that women struggle with, such as the detrimental effects of crunch time practices (Consalvo, 2008). This chapter explores a Twitter conversation from late 2012 in which female game developers sought to describe their reasons and motivations for persisting in the digital game industry. Joining under the hashtag #1ReasonToBe, the conversation reveals many reasons why women choose to stay in games, including a passion for the medium, inspiration from the support of colleagues and players, and a desire to contribute to making game industry culture more inclusive and welcoming for the next generation of game designers.

The creative industry is a fast developing sector of economy in many countries. Growing competition in this area has led many companies to implement strategy of users' involvement in product development in order to deliver products that are more aligned with customers' needs. On the other hand, the attempt to align the customers' expectations with artistic creativity may create tensions. Therefore, the aim of the research is to examine the methods of users' involvement in product development and real impact of the users on project design. The obtained findings are based on two-year qualitative research project conducted in game development companies.

W dniach 17–20 października 2016 roku pracownicy Wydziału Zarządzania przeprowadzili warsztaty z zakresu kreatywności, innowacyjności i przedsiębiorczości w Narodowym Uniwersytecie Technicznym w Chersoniu w Ukrainie. Beneficjentami szkolenia było 22 pracowników naukowych reprezentujących trzy ukraińskie ośrodki akademickie: Narodowy Uniwersytet Techniczny w Chersoniu, Narodowy Techniczny Uniwersytet Politechniczny w Charkowie oraz Odeski Narodowy Politechniczny Uniwersytet.

The aim of this thesis is to identify different types of investors, their goals and what kind of impact they can have in video game development. To achieve this, I used relevant books, web articles, data, and charts to show the impact of investors in the industry. First, this thesis focuses on the costs of making video games as an example why investors are needed in the video game industry. After the first part, the focus of the thesis move to identifying different kinds of investors and their specific roles in the video game industry. Towards the end of the thesis I will give a conclusion and write briefly about the results.Tämän tutkielman tarkoituksena on tunnistaa erityyppiset sijoittajat, heidän tavoitteensa ja millaiset vaikutukset heillä voi olla videopelien kehittämisessä. Tämän saavuttamiseksi käytin asiaankuuluvia kirjoja, web-artikkeleita, tietoja ja kaavioita osoittamaan sijoittajien vaikutusta peliteollisuudessa. Aloitan tämän opinnäytetyön keskittymällä videopelien valmistuskustannuksiin esimerkkinä siitä, miksi videopelialalle tarvitaan sijoittajia. Ensimmäisen osan jälkeen opinnäytetyön painopiste siirtyy erilaisten sijoittajien tunnistamiseen ja heidän rooleihinsa videopelialalla. Viimeisenä osana opinnäytetyötä käytän aikaa keskusteluosiossa, jossa tuon esille johtopäätökset ja kirjoitan lyhyesti tutkielmani tuloksista

Katsaus käsittelee lisenssitoimintaa lautapelisuunnittelun näkökulmasta. Lisenssitoiminta viittaa tässä kirjoituksessa lelu- ja peliteollisuuteen liittyviin käytäntöihin, joissa lisenssinhaltija (licensor) luovuttaa lisensoijalle (licensee) ajallisesti ja maantieteellisesti rajatut käyttöoikeudet edustamaansa tuotemerkkiin, hahmoon tai muuhun teokseen. Tarkastelun alla on erityisesti (lauta)peleihin liittyvä lisenssitoiminta osana leluteollisuutta ja tähän toimintaan nivoutuvat haasteet ajassa, jossa leikilliset tuotteet linkittyvät yhä enenevissä määrin viihdekulttuurin tuotteisiin. Katsauksessa todetaan lisensoinnin positiiviset vaikutukset pelisuunnittelutehtävää helpottavana asiana. Toisaalta pohditaan myös lisenssitoimintaan liittyviä haasteita pelisuunnittelun kannalta ja todetaan, ettei lisenssi itsessään ole menestyksen takaava taikasana, vaan usein suunnittelutehtävän haasteellisuutta lisäävä tekijä.

This chapter provides an overview of the Japanese video game industry (published in Wolf's _Video Games Around the World_). Sections include Sections in this chapter include:
• Challenges to Studying Computer Games in Japan
• Who Plays Computer Games?
• Japan’s Early Game Industry: SEGA, Namco, Taito, and Nintendo
• Home Consoles and Handheld Devices: A Nation That Plays Games
o Nintendo
o SEGA
o Sony
• Game Centers, Game Parlors, and the Performance of Gaming
• Social Gaming in Japan: DeNA, Gree, and Mixi
• Censorship and Rating Systems
• “Our Game Industry Is Finished”: The Present and Future State of Computer Games in Japan

This book is an adaptation of the Games and Innovation (GaIn) and Games Industry Innovation Processes (GIIP) projects combined research report: Kultima, A. & Alha, K. (Eds.) The Changing Faces of Game Innovation. GaIn and GIIP Research Project Report. TRIM Research Reports 4, University of Tampere, 2011.

The GaIn (1.1.2009-31.3.2011), as a part of Transformations of Digital Play (TDP) project and GIIP (1.3.2010 - 31.3.2011) projects were funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, University of Tampere, University of Jyväskylä and industry partners: Nokia, Veikkaus (Finnish National Lottery), Digital Chocolate, Ixonos, Universomo, Mr. Goodliving/RealNetworks, Kuuasema, Moido Games, IGIOS and Sauma Technologies. The projects were coordinated by the Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere.

In this article, we explore the findings of the Games Industry Innovation Processes (GIIP) project. In this study seven Finnish game companies were asked to describe their innovation processes from the point of view of everyday development. From each company three to six interviewees explored their thoughts with the help of a drawing exercise. The results of this study reflect the constitutive instability of the game industry, its relatively young age, and the small size of the companies studied. There is no standardized or stable innovation process and the vocabulary and perspectives used to describe such activities differ among the actors. In its simplest form and from the perspective of everyday development, the core of the game innovation process relies on the ideas that arise from the iterative and collaborative processes of the creative personnel, which include at a minimum a designer, a programmer, and an artist. These processes undergo changes depending on the products, platforms, outside actors, and
the people working on the teams.

Resumo-As grandes produções da indústria dos jogos digitais exige grandes equipes interdisciplinares, e as funções de cada profissional tendem a ser mais específicas conforme a dimensão do projeto aumenta. Uma das funções entre os artistas é a dos modeladores de ambientes tridimensionais, ou environment artists. Nesse contexto, é um desafio para a academia compreender e dialogar com a indústria, de forma a aproximar os discursos sobre os jogos de sua produção. Este artigo trata de investigar as demandas e critérios para contratação de environment artists nos Estados Unidos e Canadá, analisando e refletindo sobre os aspectos mais cobrados dentro da área de environment art. O objetivo do estudo é compreender as demandas de forma a refletir criticamente sobre esse setor da indústria e auxiliar jovens profissionais a planejar suas carreiras como environment artists. Os resultados obtidos a partir da análise de 31 vagas de emprego, de Environment Artists, nos Estados Unidos e Canadá demonstram o quanto essa profissão pode ser multidisciplinar, necessitando de profissionais que tenham mais do que somente alto conhecimento técnico. Palavras-chaves: environment artist; modelagem 3D; jogos digitais; cenários.

Amer-yhtymä teki lyhytkestoisen ekskursion pelialan julkaisutoimintaan vuosina 1984–1986. Sen perustama tytäryhtiö Amersoft oli ensimmäinen suomalainen yritys, joka pyrki laajamittaisesti julkaisemaan kotimaisia tietokonepelejä. Liiketoiminta osoittautui kuitenkin nopeasti kannattamattomaksi. Artikkelimme tarkoitus on syventää suomalaista pelihistorian tutkimusta käsittelemällä sittemmin valtavaksi kasvaneen digipeliteollisuuden hapuilevia kotimaisia varhaisvaiheita.

Kirjallisen tutkimusaineiston lisäksi lähteemme koostuvat Amersoftin entisten työntekijöiden haastatteluista. Kartoitamme ja analysoimme osatekijöitä, jotka johtivat epäonnistuneeseen yritykseen suomalaisen peliteollisuuden käynnistämiseksi 1980-luvun puolivälissä. Liiketoiminnan kannattamattomuus johtui pääasiallisesti kotimaisten pelimarkkinoiden pienuudesta, johdonmukaisen yritysstrategian puutteesta, laajalle levinneestä ohjelmistopiratismista, ulkomaisten pelien maahantuonnista, aineettoman pääoman puutteesta sekä julkaistujen pelien puutteellisesta laadusta.

Abstract: A Failed Attempt to Launch Finnish Digital Game Industry: Amersoft 1984–1986

The Finnish conglomerate Amer Group made a short-term excursion into computer game publication business in 1984–1986 by founding Amersoft. The subsidiary was the first Finnish company that aimed to produce and publish domestic computer games. However, the business proved to be unprofitable quite quickly. The objective of this article is to delve into the precarious initial steps of Finnish game industry.

In addition to the literary research material, our sources consist of interviews of former Amersoft employees. We will examine, explicate, and analyse factors that led to the failed launch of Finnish game industry in the mid-1980s. These multifaceted constituents comprised primarily of the small size of domestic game markets, lack of coherent corporate strategy, importation of foreign games, all-encompassing software piracy, absence of intellectual capital, and low quality of game design.

Artikkeli käsittelee lautapelisuunnittelua suunnittelijoiden näkökulmasta, pelikustantajan hiljaisen tiedon pelikentällä. Lautapelien suunnitteluprosessi pohjautuu osittain yleisiin suunnittelumetodeihin, toisaalta aiemmin saavutettuun – hiljaiseen – tietoon (Polanyi 1983; Nonaka & Tekeuchi 1995). Jotta pelisuunnittelija kykenisi työskentelemään kansainvälisessä lautapeliyrityksessä ja näin ollen luomaan edellytykset elämykselliselle pelikokemukselle, on hänen ymmärrettävä eri kulttuurien määrittelemiä mieltymyksiä materiaalien, tuotannon, kuvitusten ja pakkauksen suhteen. Lautapelin suunnitteluprosessi on usein tiimityöskentelyn tulos, jossa taustoiltaan erilaiset suunnittelijat ratkovat yhdessä suunniteltavan tuotteen muotoon ja toimintaan liittyviä tehtäviä. Toisinaan sama pelikustantamossa työskentelevä tuotesuunnittelutiimi jalostaa pelin ideasta aina valmiiksi markkinoitavaksi tuotteeksi. Työskentelytapa edellyttää suunnittelijoilta vuorovaikutusta ja prosessin jokaisen työvaiheen ymmärtämistä.
Artikkeli käsittelee pohjoismaisen lautapelikustantamon tuotesuunnitteluprosessia, johon osallistuu ammattimaisia, koulutustaustaltaan, iältään ja urakehitykseltään erilaisia pelisuunnittelijoita. Tutkimus pyrkii selvittämään laadullisen haastattelututkimuksen keinoin, miten hiljainen tieto kulkee suunnittelijalta toiselle ja miten pelisuunnittelija perehdytetään yrityksen muotoilufilosofiaan.