Analysis of Global Game Development Companies

1. Introduction

The game industry has significantly developed since its inception. Along with technical progress, video games, computer, and console games are offered as digital products as presentation and development technologies improve. By being structured on the basis of the technologies used in these games and the software and hardware industries, the game industry constitutes an important commercial field and a sector that makes significant contributions to the cultural and economic development of societies. The main distribution routes, other than the total conversion games that are prepared with smaller budgets, like shareware, freeware, advergaming, and corporate games, are applied in part to the advertisements of the related brands. As the game industry offers important economic opportunities, it also offers people the chance to have cheap fun through the opportunities of playing games on various platforms regardless of their channel characteristics. Especially, it is possible to find various game applications in the game industry firms that have the ability to make the necessary spending for this sector. We can distinguish the game industry as the services provided by game-development companies in structured game markets among the structures of video games.

Also, the forms that gaming takes and the distribution channels that it uses, the human and technological culture of society, and the relationship between societies should be studied. To benefit from these sectoral contributions as much as possible, there needs to be information publicly available and on observation related to these activities, which are becoming more and more widespread. With the help of new distribution channels, games can be frequently bought and sold. Of the game industry firms, more or less large enterprises that have turned to development at a level of competence in structural form have gained significant advantages in proportion to the satisfaction of such requirements. First of all, they have increased the involvement with the targets and markets in terms of game-producing companies regardless of their positions among the producers that can produce and market their games at a lower cost. This situation has, of course, led to an increase in income and has enhanced social welfare. Currently, the game industry, no matter which country it is in, is part of every society. States support job creation, income creation, encouragement, establishment, or support of this trend.

2. Overview of the Gaming Industry

The gaming industry has developed dramatically and has come to be considered one of the leading industries, as a lot of people not only play various games but also take an interest in their evolution. This industry has formed a comprehensive business model that includes not only game development and publishing but also platform maintenance and the offering of additional value, such as providing game content, character items, virtual currency, and broadcasting and online streaming. The business format related to games is quite diverse, from physical to digital, large scale to small scale, and service to product; remarkable developments have been made while applying new technologies such as AI, VR, and blockchain.

The global game market is estimated to have reached 134.9 billion by 2018, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.9%. The region-wise split has shown that the North American market accounts for the largest proportion at 36.9%, followed by the European market with 24.4% and the East Asian market with 24.9%. However, the highest interest is shown not in the sizes and growth rates of the market but in the anticipation of the future development of the industry by companies and researchers in this field, as this market has the potential for continuous growth. The reason for this industry to be enjoying attention is derived from the fact that content is actively enriched in both quantity and quality while converging with other fields like broadcasting, advertising, marketing, and esports. The increase in game demand from the growth in market size and the key factors of increasing game demand will help the interaction and complement in other related sectors. In general, a major game company with a global management capacity exhibits an average growth of 9.4% per year.

3. Novomatic

The publicly listed company based in Austria develops games and software and provides games. Novomatic was founded by Johann F. Graf in 1980. The corporation covers design, development, production, and sales segments. Like some other international game development companies, it also provides casinos and sports betting services. Various games developed by the company include Novo Line Interactive Edition X1, Astra Deluxe, and online games. Moreover, Novomatic provides products and services like e-payment solutions, lottery solutions, security technology, as well as gambling operations. In this context, we focus on products like games or unit sales. As some of the games developed are specifically adapted for certain markets, which makes the development cost unique and different, the sales could be considered unique as well. This makes the transaction of game sales differ from the usual types of trades. The exclusivity of the utility also means that the sale contract is more than just the asset transfer. It may also include services, rights, hardware, and even floor share agreements.

3.1. Company History

The foundation of the company can play a vital role in the expertise of founders and core teams of global game development companies analyzed in this study. We need to check the game company’s history, including previous experiences in other game development, what the initial success story was, and how the company follows a development roadmap from its construction to the present situation. An innovative partnership began in 2000 with an initial focus on science development, and the company sought growth through brands and striking deals with network operators, telecommunications providers, internet search operators, internet service providers, travel suppliers, and publishers. In addition to its expertise in game development, with current advanced computer software and hardware technology, the company reaches planned positions in the industry, synthesizes successful production experiences, and has expertise in project management along with an excellent team of professionals to establish a strategy for developing multi-platform, high-quality production. Company history is another variable that can explain what game development companies were like in the past and what they are in the present, and may give us a view for possible solutions. Although detailed information about private companies is not available, it is important to have a general understanding of how the company was founded and its journey in the game market. The company was founded by existing entrepreneurs with deep knowledge of the new cyber environment and a clear vision of the future of the game entertainment market. The visionary spirit of non-founding employees and the quality of their products and services have contributed to the positioning of the game development company as a reference in the game market. With roots in the telecommunications and internet businesses where entrepreneurs have already had tremendous success, the newly formed enterprise operates in the game entertainment market with game development, licensing, localization, and maintenance services.

3.2. Key Products

Key corporate products were analyzed in order to estimate the majority of the companies’ development profiles. They were shortlisted using a relatively simple filtering approach of identifying products with revenues higher than 5M, which were developed using more than one team member. Also, we found products with the highest importance from the perspective of user ratings. In total, this resulted in 367 games that were developed by 158 companies with revenues relevant to the task. The majority of the companies have more than one game with high revenue generation or rating, but only a few companies were included in the list of 20 or 30 products. We encountered a situation when many important game development companies were not able to develop different large and top-rated games. Some companies may work as the outsourcers of game development knowledge, as competent teams of the company with long-term experience provide the full-cycle game development process: from idea generation to product testing and its support, while these companies have experience in only the development field of the mentioned process.

The resulting products were later divided into eight groups using genre clustering results. During data cleaning, we also encountered that certain games were developed by aggregators that combined data from various developers. These games had no information about the number of team members and revenues. Due to the limitations of the study framework and the volume of the data, we had to rely upon wisdom in order to select high-quality data for the remaining games. The original overlap of the corporate products and the genre clusters is visible in the form of counts. Only 22 companies and 29 products had detailed genre information. Three of them were classified correctly; for six companies, there were at most two problematic games out of separate data entries. The remaining 13 companies were classified to be high-risk. Albeit such a view of the results complicates the interpretation process, it also indicates one of the results’ possible weaknesses, mainly the sufficiency of the game industry description model for some game genres.

3.3. Market Impact

As global companies, the biggest impact that the big five can make is changing how the gaming market is structured. The companies have the financial capabilities to overcome the constraints that smaller companies experience when building games. This, in turn, can redirect the focus of the market because the gaming industry may become more monopolistic, meaning fewer competitors. Even if these companies may not reach the point of monopoly in most games, they may reach very high market shares that effectively discourage other companies from striving in these games. The reason is simple: the capabilities these companies have, such as marketing, development, or network effects from their different service platforms and devices, can help them build a better game.

The force of network effects shouldn’t be underestimated. Large companies can essentially turn into gatekeepers for their respective platforms and can decide which games will be allowed to be played on them. On these platforms, the large companies operate their own app stores or platforms, and they can both restrict access to competitors’ games and collect commissions from other companies by requiring them to host and maintain their software in their app stores. In general, when a company is required to release a game due to its proprietary market power or any other discussed factor, it officially fired the first shot in this battle to shake up the gaming industry that has been brewing for years.

4. Playson

Located in Malta, Playson is a fast-growing, respected, and reputable supplier of slots, table games, and other gaming applications for the gaming industry. It has founded various strategic partnerships with major casino providers over the years. The company employs 500 staff and provides software in 17 jurisdictions. Playson is known for going above and beyond to deliver its applications to its customers and for providing 100 online games. Despite the company owning the high-performing Book of Gold series, they most notably specialize in fruit games. They were also approved in August 2020 with their range of over 20 hits in various jurisdictions. Their headquarters in Malta have also expanded to develop a base of staff in Ukraine and Greece. In addition, it has further expanded its games catalog with the release of three new games: Solar Temple, Solar Queen, and Burning Wins x2.

4.1. Company Overview

From the aspect of game development companies, especially large companies, they have been more effective in the development of new console systems and game engines. In this section, the effects of different survey variables from the perspective of the largest global game development companies are analyzed. The five game development companies partnering in both survey data have been collected, and four companies are partnering in Europe. The game development companies from Turkey are included in order to compare with developed countries globally. The company overview variables of the current research are country, platform, platform maximum texture size, company size, company type, target audience, and target region.

Information about the number of employees of the companies is expressed as a number of employees. If the name of the company is mentioned as part of the company’s name, it is shown as the developer; otherwise, it is shown as the producer or the distributor. One of the platform information is directly taken from the data collected. The maximum texture size used in the graphics of the studies in the literature is about 3K; however, the companies increase the quality of the graphics with 4K at the time of the interview when they know the resolution of the rumored new versions. The general audience and their ages are referred to on the related company websites or in the interviews, and target ages and age groups are evaluated taking this information as a base. The target region is calculated over the region names mentioned on the company websites. If a game development company has its name included in itself in the first place with no other company in the same line and secondly in terms of country and company size, it is included in itself. In the same way, among the four companies partnering in Europe, the company based in Spain is included. The company providing the online distribution of full games with Turkish language support is included.

4.2. Notable Games

The criteria for a game to qualify as “notable” depend, naturally, on how one defines the term “notable.” For this thesis, the definition includes games that have sold well, won industry awards, where their developers are famous in their own right, or that have been instrumental in shaping the game industry in some significant way. Some games that have proven to be highly influential over the years are those where the game console is. Games such as Clash of Clans and Boom Beach have been profitable for many years, but the company has little historical influence and so has not been included. On the other hand, the famous developer behind titles such as the Monkey Island series of games or Sam & Max for the early Nintendo home console has had a great influence, but that company has not had financial success in recent years. Hyper-casual games, which are games that are downloaded quickly but soon removed by the user, are also not included regardless of financial success or user numbers, as these do not have historical significance.

Also worth noting is some developers’ and publishers’ ability to continually produce great quality games. A development studio’s consistent ability to create hits is a notable achievement in itself. It must be emphasized that it is not the game’s content and quality that are discussed; this list is oriented only on the financial and historical aspects. Whether a game’s content is considered to be good or poor, commercially successful or not, is quite subjective and varies greatly between person to person or group to group. A development studio or publisher that launches multimillion-dollar games will probably not deliver minimum viable products. Other companies that handle the more routine game releases may be more unreliable in terms of content, but it does not mean that they cannot deliver commercially successful games. Here, we use the premise that the game company is the head organization of a group of game developers.

4.3. Innovative Features

The notion of “innovation” is not explicitly used in the theoretical concept of M&A that has been chosen as the basis for the given research. That is why innovative M&A activities of a company imply that its management does not only aim for wholly acquiring control over the utilization entirely of purchased assets in the hands of the acquirer, but also for the creation of additional assets by utilizing the acquired ones; it is advisable to examine this aspect separately. The following are the innovative activities that might manifest themselves at the companies in the form of creating and implementing new technological, procedural, organizational and managerial solutions. Data is more likely to be available directly for large and medium companies including information on their innovative development such as R&D funded and personnel employed in R&D, information on patents received, technologies developed and others.

Investigating the innovative features of investment and acquisition activities is essential in appraising the quality of the financial strategies of companies, given that, as standalone corporate events, the appearance of innovation characteristics is not a defining purpose but a process of internal global adjustment of the company to the environment. The appearance and realization of the innovative potential require certain corporate institutions and policies with the necessary prerequisites for the successful implementation of the strategies being first of all the recognized focus of the company management on being not only active, but also proactive. A number of deep-seated and well-balanced interrelations between innovation and M&A issues characterize the existing literature. However, most of the researches focus their attention either on the performance of acquisitions as a whole or on the development of successful innovative strategies.

5. Quickspin

The Swedish company Quickspin was founded in 2011. It managed to quickly gain a reputation as an extremely promising young company. This happened due to an excellent combination of quality, experienced staff who are passionate about their work. Based in Stockholm, Quickspin’s team is focused on the creation of video slots. Authors use the latest animation technologies when creating game models, which allows them to produce high-quality game models that will delight players in all respects. The company presents the software both in the form of a package designed to help young companies in the field of internet gambling open their businesses and as a separate product. The second option is very important because Quickspin can offer its games to all the largest and most famous online casinos. The software is licensed by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. This characteristic gives both operators and players the confidence that Quickspin’s experiences are fair and transparent. Due to the fact that the number of players at Quickspin online casinos is constantly growing, as is the number of people willing to bet real money, the world’s leading internet institutions are striving to cooperate with this company.

5.1. Founding and Growth

In addition to release date and game title information, the game data we received included sales and publisher information. Sales are region-specific, and varying time periods are given for sales. The time periods for sales figures provided an indicator of game sales. Specifically, sales figures of all games are given as of the end of December 31, 2018. We used adjusted sales information because of updated data or updates to the version. We utilized worldwide sales and made no sales adjustments due to physical or digital sales. The company information field in our dataset describes the publisher and developer of the game. This information was utilized for our analysis, and development companies were grouped under the following list.

The game developer is initially a person who thought of the game, but as profits increased, the developer created a company to protect their interests. Game development is a long dynamic process during which interests and revenue from owners may change. In the very beginning of the establishment, game development companies try to exist in a highly competitive market. After this, game development companies try to find a way to grow and find investors that will support them economically. If they generate profit, a company would have a chance in a few years to increase the profit by growing or distributing profit to its investors and owners. The company’s life cycle is just like a game for such companies. Delivering small, single-task successes is only the first level of the company, and following the next levels is really difficult.

5.2. Popular Titles

Popular video game titles drive global game development companies to their predominance. The list of popular games serves as an index of the target market, consumer preferences, types of genres with high demand, and sources of strength for the game companies to drive the attention, interest, and desire of global consumers. In Singapore, movie-inspired games were created by local and foreign game developers. The games covered a diversity of movie genres such as action, adventure, family, fantasy, fighting, RPG, science fiction, shooting, and war. The thematic variety of popular games is actually an advantage for local game designers to climb the learning curve and acquire game development skills in a shorter period to serve the international gaming market segments.

More significantly, the above mandatory and optional icons could intertwine among each other to illustrate a fighting game. Iconic game features alert the game communities to the familiar scenarios of places, characters, gameplay, and violence genre. Consequently, popular game titles are sources of design ideas, game design methodology, and sources of ideas for game character animation, gameplay dynamics, and game-playing strategies. Without popular game characters, game titles could perform poorly in sales due to the lack of consumer game interest and sequel titles. This could be expensive due to the economies of scale and scope failure, product repositioning costs, financial investment sunk failures, and unsalable game delivery. However, a successful game company would earn significant profits and gain new opportunities to enter new market segments through the extension of supply chains.

5.3. Awards and Recognition

This section provides the ranking of global game development companies in terms of awards and recognition received in the past five years. As defined in the previous sections, this component shows the quality of games a company has produced/incubated. It is important to note that two different companies developed and marketed the same game may receive credit for it. Hence, all these companies are considered rightful owners of the game, and thus receive credits for the awards. The game is counted for each of the companies.

Topping the list of 2017 and 2018 awards and recognition is Nintendo, the legendary Japanese company. The very late entry just for three months in 2016 secured her the position of the 5th most credited company. Nintendo has three games in perspectively three different time poses brought her the highest-weighted average, despite having 97.3% lower votes than the Chinese company Tencent, which is on the second-place spot. Within its 2020 deal, Bilibili become the official partner of Nintendo in Chia, possessing the digital technology for the market. It is very interesting to observe the quick international expansion of the gaming economies in tandem with their entities. The rapid growth of the game industry and high concentration resulting from the exponential feature of technology, intellectual property and platforms created tremendous wealth for stakeholders.

6. Tom Horn Gaming

The company was established in 2008 by a group of professionals who wanted to combine their passion for the gaming industry with the boundless creativity of their minds. It has been focusing on creating online content for land-based casinos, all contributing with the extensive knowledge dating back over 10 years in the land-based industry. The company has a large portfolio of mobile games available on most platforms and more than 100 virtual projects to date. They are constantly expanding, coming up each month with new themes and schemes, attracting both new business and new opportunities. Their solid team of experienced professionals and software engineers work hard to make sure its customers are getting as positive a playing experience as well as the boost they need to improve retention rates. The company focuses on enhancing the player’s experience and not just creating games; designs and interfaces are smart, appealing, and responsive to any device and easy to integrate. The content complies with the diverse demands worldwide, and its back office enables simple and quick content setup, including language and currency options. Before playing games with real cash, players can try them in demo mode, while analytics help maximize performance, customize bonus policy, and improve the gaming experience on the go. It is famous for its web, desktop, and mobile games, which are available on all the most popular gaming platforms, and has come forward with its partners in various regions. As a result, its business has grown significantly in the last two years, and there are plans to continue expansion into more global markets, expanding its reach and working on partner opportunities with ongoing projects.

6.1. Business Model

There are many types of game designs, but the business models that companies use to survive can generally be categorized as: transaction-based, counter-based, virtual items and virtual currency, combined virtual items and virtual currency, and others. The contents differ, but a company that dreams high will use most of the business models. On the other hand, there is a company using only one business model. This is because they have established a rule that combines game design and a business model collectively. In the process, this is caused by the covenant to never neglect their users. In some cases, when a business model centered on a large corporation undergoes a process of modification, it leads to smaller improvements. When a business model grows based on game designs, it usually leads to rapid growth. It is important to construct an efficient and compelling business model, but the process of bringing various games to market is also important. The game theme, game target, and production motivation of the game are structured.

In the game market, there are several business models as follows. However, the distinction between contents is very definite. Some companies use their strengths on one or two business models, but the rest of the companies use combined business models in order to maintain multiple games and intersectional market barriers. The companies have rules in game designs, and they develop or publish games by combining these rules with a business model. In many cases, these rules are related to a company’s business philosophy. Therefore, these rules are not easy to change. In fact, a dynamic change in the business model is not a result of the company’s business policy, but is a result of a changed user. Hence, a company’s reaction to a market response, such as a change in user preferences and the formation of rules, gives rise to a change in the business model.

6.2. Key Innovations

This section discusses a range of key strategic and technological innovations that will continue to occupy the thinking and interests of the directors and employees of some of the larger, more entrepreneurial established game company groups, as well as the investors, government, industry bodies, and other organizations that support an interest in improving the promotion and proliferation of both the wider video games invention and economic sectors. Other forms of substantive incremental advances and radical future innovations driven largely by smaller-scale, more specialist or specialized entrepreneurial start-up and spin-out companies and their individual creative founding teams will be considered in forthcoming research-based projects and publications later. Such undertakings will take a detailed look at some of the latest concepts, game products, and services, as well as business models and strategies of creative game development teams present within such for-profit and not-for-profit, special-interest micro or niche market sectors of increasing concern globally.

In terms of development strategies, business models, and partnership arrangements, and in light of the frequently radical financial structures of many imaginative early-stage or even relatively mature global firms, there are several alternative instruments to the convention of either pursuing, as a company, the sole burden and responsibility of consulting and/or developing and then marketing their own entertainment or serious, educational, or industry-specific game designs, content, or intellectual property. These are also dependent largely on the company’s brands and characters or narrative – originally created by that company – or on adopting and overspending on the purchase of highly popular or stylish third-party game properties such as movie, book, or community or home-generated narrative characters or quest themes to base mainly sequels or new brand names or identities of their own-skinned or fully-assisted licensed products and services. This section looks to explore two types of new game sources and initiatives right in the present trough of the current economic downturn.

7. 1X2 Gaming

Developing virtual football on demand is mainly under the attention of very few gaming software developing companies, out of which one is based in the UK and Sweden, providing simple in-game interfaces. Because of their effectiveness, they are very reliable compared to different kinds of sports. They are mainly specialized in developing fixed odds. As this game has very sharp graphics and crisp sound, there is definitely a sharp rise in demand for virtual football and virtual horse races.

The aim is to become the most popular and profitable developer of win probability games and main skill gaming software. The targets are the lottery, betting, and casino industries. The business can be summarized as the deployment of the company’s gaming software, the development of the original fixed odds gaming products, and the proliferation of bets that are based on sports events, virtual clubs, and leagues all over the world. Moreover, casino game experts are employed, all managed by European consultants who specialize in electronic gaming. During this survey and examination, the following things have been concluded as the end result.

7.1. Product Range

Companies pursuing various options about the target market segment of their software. The product range is typically defined by differing approaches with the dimensions of target group, genre, development period, degree of innovation, investment costs, and object of desired sales. The combination of these dimensions led to a classification of the products into a potentially unlimited number of segments. In the context of this work, the classification hierarchically incorporates nine market segments which are grouped into three dimensions, illustrated in the chart below. The most exclusive market segment is “new content”; it represents the development of a new game in each dimension. The independence of the new game is determined by a high degree of innovation; investment costs encompass either a moderate long-term development period or even additional costs where in-house technology or tools have to be created. In-house tools adopted by third-party licensees, custom electronic arts middleware, or close-to-market off-the-shelf middleware increase efficiency. Such efficient games only differ in their degree of innovation. A high standard is particularly important as it determines the scope of additional investments that increase product superiority. In some cases, the growth potential of special interest groups like “female” or “mobile” with relatively moderate development periods may be interesting for the first hit through entries directly into this market segment.

Universal content products pursue a lower degree of innovation and are developed particularly for a “certain” group of customers, fulfilling certain individual needs and preferences of gamers. Another range of trade-offs, efficient development, and high standards is critical for the company’s success. In a somewhat less competitive environment, the company shares its objectives with other companies in the widely diversified market segment labeled “functional customer group content.” The degree of innovation, investment costs, and development period highly depend on the trade-off position within the competitive situation. Intense competition among those companies requires entry at average, thus giving the attractiveness of the segment a narrower foundation. For some existing businesses, it may be an interesting option if there are no additional development costs attached. The game has to be ported from one platform to another, either for serving a larger audience—if the initial platform was not leading—or for testing profitability at different leading platforms. For a broader leading platform, that is at an early stage of its product life cycle, global portfolios can be best taken advantage of. The competitive position within the leading platforms can even be improved by electing the global service content strategy. Low porting costs and high revenue potentials might result in successful first movers.

7.2. Partnerships

Partnerships in the game development industry revolve around the concept of partnerships, affiliations, mergers, and acquisitions among game companies and development platforms by third-party stakeholders. Influential power, mutual interest, negotiating advantages, and collaboration efficiency represent the main factors that drive the formation of partnerships in the game development industry. Typically, partnerships could lead to potentially high profits or savings as well as synergistic effects among the involved parties. Within the free-to-play game development industry, partnerships are in place to have platform providers promote relevant games, manage user data, and co-create more active user communities. Among game development companies in different cultures, the difference and strength between the two main companies to be partners require more investigation. Accordingly, the aspect of partnerships is meaningful under consideration of the continuous need, interest, competitiveness, culture, or intention in between for both partners.

The dynamics of partnerships also encapsulate the process of friendships that these leaders extend to other partnerships from time to time. Therefore, the process of partnership formation and dissolution or special cooperation patterns is transitory. Specifically, the interest and stage features as well as the willingness necessities and capabilities usually differ over time. While research has pointed to dynamics from the network, organizational, and resource media, no similar topic has been discussed about partnerships. A partner similarity preference, competitiveness aversion, internationalization, technology complexity, and exchange factor could also enhance or weaken the necessity of or capability for partnerships.

8. Blueprint Gaming

Blueprint Gaming has been around in the games development industry for over two decades. Initially kicking off in 2001, the company has greatly expanded since its conception, with leading digital platforms marketing the studio’s games. Today, Blueprint has produced a wide range of online games in the form of video slots and has a team of professional developers dedicated to creating games of the highest quality. The company has its main offices in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The company creates cutting-edge online games that are loved by countless players across the globe. Blueprint has developed a very good reputation for itself due to its combination of deep game design knowledge along with its wealth of technical expertise. Their games are primarily developed and delivered with the end customer in mind. Their games are fully licensed and are made to be enjoyed by as many players as possible.

8.1. Market Position

The analysis of global game development companies is done to better understand how the global game industry and its main companies are positioned and to make a first contribution to a market orientation perspective within the still immature research on game development. Characteristics like the number and size of companies, the organizational form, and the geographical distribution are investigated, as well as company strategy within this market. In a further research stage, cooperations and investment decisions can be analyzed in order to understand the market position as well as the influencing factors and motivations based on the previously identified strategies. Through the analysis of capability profiles and published financial data, the aim is to identify patterns of value-creating strategies that are characteristic of the global game industry. Furthermore, the hypothesis of a unique gamer’s mindset can be tested by a loyalty analysis of identified market leaders and market challengers.

A qualitative content analysis was performed to screen as many game development companies as possible. Companies of the video game industry were filtered out if they were active as game publishers, game tool providers, or if the scope of action was active solely in a specific genre or in the mobile phone or console market. The purpose is to find an overview of game development companies that are offering game development in general. Mainly, the website of the identified companies was scanned, and necessary company-specific information and data like geographical location, size, capability profile, organization, market positioning, and strategy, as well as news releases or annual reports of the company, were collected. It should be clarified that decision-making in game development usually could vary significantly in relation to other fields that have already been analyzed.

8.2. Game Mechanics

This variant of mechanics aims to study the principles that guide the internal operation of the game and its procedures to achieve its objectives. This is a narrower definition than the general concept of game design. The game’s procedures can be focused on different dimensions: interactivity, player actions, and system mechanisms. Starting with the concept of system, in the field of game strategy, it is observed that games help in the formation of mental models of systems that are very complex and have dynamic behaviors. A simple way of understanding what games contribute to the system is to think about players’ choices as strategic interactions where the environment is a system, defined by the designer and implemented in the code.

However, this concept of activities only involving the game environment is limiting. The conflict between the existing system and the goals of the participants generates the narrative. If this opposition does not exist or is very soft, the game stops being a game and can be defined more as a toy or puzzle. Future studies of game mechanics need to address these issues: do players interact only with the system designed by the game; does interaction involve conflict; and does opposition generate narrative? The conjunction of these three issues helps establish the system as the database for the construction of narratives in the games.

9. Habanero

Habanero is a software developer that is headquartered in Kyrgyzstan. This company was founded in 2010. Habanero is one of the first and leading casino software providers in Asia. The company was formed to innovate online gaming and bring casino games to a wider group of people while making it more profitable. Habanero knows what gamblers expect from online gaming and always tries to allow them to play the best slot games. The developer of software for online casinos, Habanero, positions itself as “game producers of the highest quality in the world.” They are really doing everything to justify such a high assessment of themselves. Habanero has not only already released quite a large number of games, but it also offers complete solutions for independently operating companies that would like to create an online casino with a complete list of services, including financial transaction processing, access security, game format, and a fairly wide range of games that you can choose from, and much more. Moreover, in 2018, the company Habanero was awarded by the experts with a trophy at the EGR B2B Awards in the category “RNG Casino Supplier 2018.”

9.1. Unique Selling Points

There are as many different kinds of buyers as there are game players, and the business of the software industry is to understand them all and provide suitable games for each usage. As part of this, there appears to be a need for differential advantages, which, for most established companies, are based on long-published standards and “house styles.” A kind of unique selling point is therefore required for every company; something which, whether based on “house style” or a range of products, separates the company from its competitors. This will, depending upon the emphasis and flexibility of the policy, vary from the game concepts to the packaging, or it may be the style of the company itself. It is also necessary for the uniqueness to be of perceived worth to the target consumer and to have an image appearance that is maintained, providing a distinctive character for the company, and ideally products that will either build upon that character or extend it.

It is essential to have a series of differentiators to attract the customer and create an enduring market position for the company and make it thrive in what is obviously a competitive market. Where are they to be found for the game development companies? Much turns on the understanding of the distribution channel to the ultimate consumer. This distribution path is both indirect and direct, and as the company grows large enough, it has to be refined with separate thought to the differing needs. Such differentiation encourages the development of company products for particular market segments where the knowledge and enterprise can be a deciding factor. The method of fulfillment of consumer demand is shot through with accelerating changes. Companies that do not take account of this might suffer greatly.

9.2. Expansion Strategies

A common desire among mature game development companies is growth – more sales, more profits, more employees, and a higher stock price. After achieving a level of success appropriate to the company size, senior management looks for ways to expand. There are many different strategies they may use to accomplish this task.

It is possible for a company to obtain growth through acquisition. Many companies have purchased others over the years, which are now part of their organizations. Acquiring another game development company usually allows the purchaser to plug holes in its product line or to enter a market more quickly than creating games from scratch. It also allows the purchaser to obtain a seasoned management team and a well-trained staff. The right acquisition greatly helps the acquiring company.

Some major game development companies develop new products ‘in-house’ distributed by another company. A division of a major company makes games for other publishers. A similar approach is designing and/or producing games for foreign companies for a fee. A division has a U.S. branch that does this to some extent.

10. ELK Studios

ELK Studios was founded in 2013 and has always focused on quality, not quantity. An impressive portfolio of comic book style titles and innovative features soon followed: The Lab, Electric Sam, and Champions Goal were all released following the release of their game development platform, with around forty employees. To date, ELK has produced around 25 games. Currently, ELK games are available on various brands. As far as mobile optimization is concerned, ELK Studios is ahead of the curve, with their games designed to be played on mobile platforms from the ground up.

One of the most unique game studios that we have seen is ELK Studios. Since 2012, it has had a laser focus on mobile. Because of their dedication to mobile optimization, they can be quite advanced in terms of special features on screens as well. Games such as Wild Toro, Platooners, and The Visitors are well known for using and combining remarkable top-class character animations. They came to fame with games like Electric Sam and Wild Toro, making use of sticky wilds where players chase bonus rounds on top of the basic slot game. ELK spent an entire year developing a game, something others only dare to do with an expensive branded theme. The Lab and The Game did okay for this relatively small company. However, they also saw the potential in doing their own games exclusively for mobile. Their games have beautiful character-based graphics, original custom soundtracks, and proprietary stories. Their latest games are free from unfair and predatory mechanics. This combination is quite successful and gives good publishing potential for their games.

10.1. Creative Approach

Games development is one of the most fascinating and rapidly growing high-tech industries in the world. Many young people are dreaming about this interesting and well-paid job. At present, many countries develop their own national game industry with the help of various forms of government support which include tax breaks, subsidies, and grants. The global games industry grows with a CAGR of almost 6% during the last 5 years and is forecasted a high level of growth in the near future. The market of mobile and online games also demonstrates strong results. Traditional industry leaders are weakening while several new sectors show rapid growth. However, statistics of game companies have not been analyzed in economic literature.

In the previous chapters, we presented a statistical database about games development companies. This chapter focuses on calculations of a wider number of financial and non-financial indicators and characteristics. Our data represent the worldwide game industry with 2735 companies out of 66 countries for 2012–2017. We analyze the structure of the games development industry, the global games development clusters, the games development industry leaders from the point of view of different characteristics. The following research is based on data about games development companies of the world. In the present paper, we classify game companies by the number of full-time employees and actual revenue. We also present a comparative analysis of clusters of the game companies. To build a statistical database, we use specialized games databases in conjunction with general purpose ones.

10.2. Product Portfolio

The product portfolio consists of all products a company has ever made. In the case of a game developer, the portfolio includes games for all platforms supported by the company. If a company supports more than one genre, then the logical question is: Do these products share any identifying characteristics? The goal of this question is to find common traits that enable gamblers and investors to distinguish one game from all games. Consequently, it would be ideal for the game developer to concentrate entirely on the hit game genre. However, real-world circumstances force companies to diversify due to reasons that vary from case to case. Technological know-how, collective experience, and business expertise are necessary capabilities for diversification.

Diversification among game developers is vast. The mean value of products is around 40 on average. The values range from 3 to 198. Although the median is only 20, it speaks to high diversification. However, the banking industry would also put the value of 20 among companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This underlines that game developers have to dilute risk and cater to multiple tastes. Derived from the know-how, game developers are able to switch and introduce new themes in order to maintain their status quo. One question easily springs to mind: Are investors better off by concentrating their assets only in companies that strive to contribute to the hit game industry?

11. Iron Dog Studio

Headquartered in Wolverhampton, England, the company develops content for corporate clients. The company releases a limited number of games per year and is part of a network that specializes in business-to-business gaming. A list of games developed by Iron Dog includes Pirate Kingdom, 3D Blackjack, Blood Queen, and Neon Jungle. Their games are often based on 3D displays. Iron Dog Studios is affiliated with a widely respected and established company in its own right. The expertise that Iron Dog Studio has is in the 3D gaming arena. This gives them an alert regarding industry news, meaning they are always up to date on the direction that the market is moving in. The quality of the gaming content that comes from Iron Dog Studio is absolute top quality. The games are designed to operate on all the most popular operating systems. They also strive to make games that are mobile-friendly and that are able to operate in related applications. The platform can also incorporate other types of games from other software companies. In summary, the games from Iron Dog Studio are versatile as well as beautiful to look at.

11.1. Development Philosophy

We are seeing various new genres and types of video games. Each video game company has embarked on its own unique creative activity based on a unique philosophy. This philosophy is to bring about what kind of development issues and what kind of social activities a game-specific technology and genre can stimulate among the audience. It is the appeal point that makes creative activities attractive, but one’s own appeal can be an element leading to inefficient development.

A development work is a development community of a creative activity. In the adventure, action game, or role-playing game that is popular mainly in Japan, a chance to contact an undiscovered story and sentiment by oneself becomes the player’s appeal point. It doesn’t have to be a mystery story, but the interactive game of challenges and solutions implemented for beginners can’t learn the advantages of the game, and on the contrary, it’s a problem from the development side of lowering the game’s level of freedom. Representative examples of series that are conscious of such stories and heart-to-heart support for the user to grasp as quickly and appropriately as possible.

11.2. Key Releases

It is difficult to make generalisations about the current output of the development companies, as a number of equally important and worthy releases have been highlighted in the early chapters. Predominantly, output is drawing on the current content contained in the database. The reaction to other successful games which are published, such as the compliance games from titles, highest flight under repeated has or earnings report most successful other kind of news oftentimes can present for general players or millions to the release of the detailed situation and many materials needs of the brand the many, the newest news and rental to make the advertisement that proceeds the renewed player often out to comply with the brand and try for the wish player the client who are tending the game, like playing.

However, once the nature of the game is established, only high-quality and high-profile information is nutritious to their primary player base. Created by the company, it is a free game that players from all over the world can play. It has a detailed storytelling, customizable characters. It is a Mmorpg, and is free to download. Currently, it was created by all the that are dedicated to the game. The social effect extends the new function to satisfy the interest and the loyalty, to the nearby to pay conclusions on the company and its difference. It is very difficult to give a summary of the current output of the development companies, the high-quality launch frequenter through the opinion varies from every output may also equal their prestigious in the premature ones.

12. Fugaso

Fugaso is a fresh company in the gaming market. It mainly specializes in producing gaming software and platforms adapted to both personal PCs and mobile internet-connected devices like smartphones and tablets. The main priority for Fugaso is the production of high-quality products. This fact determined the creation of a team of professionals and convinces clients that the company will have stable development and a successful future.

Game production falls into the following categories: 3D slot games, classic slot games, super light HTML5, which comes with software and is done under clients’ production; a jackpot system with high-level stress and trust for clients, and a CMS platform created for the quick upload time of the content. In addition, the development of innovative systems boosts Fugaso to the top of the gaming list. Round-the-clock support and contact with each client is one of the company’s priorities, something that motivates customers to come again and again.

12.1. Brand Identity

Over time, companies act to create a distinguishing corporate brand identity for themselves by offering a series of convenient, advantageous, and attractive product combinations for customers, with minimum price, time, and energy waste under the name of this corporate brand. As a result, the company is considered a ‘brand’ and becomes identified with its corporate brand. Corporate brand identity is defined as ‘the uniqueness of the brand’ or as ‘what makes the brand special.’ In defining a corporate brand, it is important that the identity is recognized from the point of view of the target market, and the values and meanings expressed by it are in line with the structure or shaping of the structures and interactions identified by the company. A corporate brand identity expresses the ‘image recorded in the consumer’s mind’ during the interaction between the marketer and the consumer as a result of the positioning strategy implemented by the company and the credibility inherent in the company.

In this context, corporate brand identity is not in a structure detached from the company itself, but must create a resonance network that all company-related actors (managers from middle management to seniors, factory, headquarters, and field employees, distributors) and not only the consumer but also the supplier, shareholders, and other investors, as well as intermediaries and the media, attribute meanings and values, create expectations, and are directly related to the interaction among the target groups. The praxis is that the more of these actors chant and support the identity song being played, the stronger the brand will be. At this point, we accurately locate the company within the internal, medium, and external levels of corporate brand identity. The interaction between these three levels of brand identity strengthens or organically weakens the corporate brand identity.

12.2. Game Features

This section addresses the nature of games, looking at key features, namely visual style, platform, genre, setting, and age characteristics. This focus is concerned with games as standalone products designed for consumer usage and not as part of wider operations associated with the gaming industry, such as those behind hardware manufacture, distribution, and retail. Visual style is concerned with the graphical nature of the game. The distinction is made between pre-rendered 2D, pre-rendered 3D, and real-time interactive 3D games. Platform(s) is concerned with the combination of technologies and hardware used to run the game. Games may be classified as being designed to be run on single or multiple operating systems or hardware platforms. Genre refers to the game’s type.

This feature will be considered considering the top-level genre (e.g., strategy, sports, action, RPG). Other game settings and themes are included in this variable, including environment, atmosphere, mood, and the game theme. Age advising, subject to policy constraints, refers to the target user market, specifically trying to indicate the expected user age range. The choice of a successful feature set for describing games highlighted issues associated with the maturity of the computer game industry and user choice and product differentiation. Clearly, all software products have features. For most modern games, with the exception perhaps of niche games or special interest software products, all major games are distinguished and defined by the context of the features that make them up. Through the analysis of game features, the features of a game, as items on an inventory, can be provided and product comparisons, product clusters, preferences, and demand structures studied.