Published
Sep 29, 2023Page count
156 pagesISBN
978-1529223040Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Sep 29, 2023Page count
156 pagesISBN
978-1529223057Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Sep 29, 2023Page count
156 pagesISBN
978-1529223057Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
Games in the Platform Economy
This book examines the evolution of digital platform economies through the lens of online gaming.
Offering valuable empirical work on Valve’s ‘Steam’ platform, Thorhauge examines the architecture of this global online videogame marketplace and the way it enables new markets and economic transactions. Drawing on infrastructure, software, platform and game studies, the book interrogates the implications of these transactions, both in terms of their legality, but also in how they create new forms of immaterial labour.
Shedding new light on a previously under-explored branch of the study of digital platforms, this book brings a unique economic sociology perspective into the growing literature on videogame studies.
"For two decades, the popular PC gaming platform Steam has been an exception to many of the economic rules driving the game industry. Taking a refreshing economic-sociological perspective, Thorhauge meticulously untangles the complex set of actors that drive Steam’s engine and its players." David B. Nieborg, University of Toronto
Anne Mette Thorhauge is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Copenhagen.
1. Introduction: Steam’s tangled markets
2. Platform configurations in gaming
3. Economic sociology and the analysis of platforms as markets
4. Valve corporation and the Steam platform
5. Steam’s business model
6. Shaping market interactions on the Steam platform
7. Economic actors on the steam platform
8. Player trading beyond Steam
9. User monetisation and value creation in tangled markets
