GAMA Lab

Research on game monetization, includes ad revenue, selling premium content, microtransactions, virtual currency, player rewards. Example research:

• Guo, H., Hao, L., Mukhopadhyay, T., & Sun, D. (2019). Selling Virtual Currency in Digital Games: Implications for Gameplay and Social Welfare. Information Systems Research, 30(2), 430-446.
• Guo, H., Zhao, X., Hao, L., & Liu, D. (2019). Economic analysis of reward advertising. Production and Operations Management, 28(10), 2413-2430.

In-Game Economics Affiliated faculty:

Guo

Sun

Zhao

Research on the game development organization and design processes, focusing on the impact of autonomous tools, in-game analytics, and artificial intelligence technologies on design outcomes including game play, engagement, innovation, and creativity. Examples of research in this area include:

• Werder, K., Seidel, S., Recker, J., Berente, N., Gibbs, J., Abboud, N., & Benzeghadi, Y. (2020). Data-Driven, Data-Informed, Data-Augmented: How Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Live Unit Uses Data for Continuous Product Innovation. California Management Review, 62(3), 86-102.
• Seidel, S., Berente, N., & Gibbs, J. (2019). Designing with Autonomous Tools: Video Games, Procedural Generation, and Creativity. International Conference on Information Systems.
• Seidel, S., Berente, N., Martinez, B., Lindberg, A., Lyytinen, K., & Nickerson, J. V. (2018). Autonomous tools in system design: Reflective practice in Ubisofts Ghost Recon Wildlands project. IEEE Computer, 51(10), 16-23.
• Seidel, S., Berente, N., Lindberg, A., Lyytinen, K., & Nickerson, J. V. (2019). Autonomous tools and design: a triple-loop approach to human-machine learning. Communications of the ACM, 62(1), 50-57.

Game Development & AI Affiliated Faculty:

Berente

Qu

Research exploring the market competition in the game industry and player decisions outside of gameplay, such as purchasing decisions, and the impacts of upgrades, price changes, etc. An example of research in gaming market economics analysis:

• Qu, X., Lotfi, A., & Jiang, Z. (2018). Predicting Time to Upgrade under Successive Product Generations: A Survival Model with Exponential-Decay Baseline Function. International Conference on Information Systems.

Game Development & AI Affiliated Faculty:

Kelley

Qu

We are exploring analytic techniques for understanding unstructured video and text data during tournaments in order to maximize viewer engagement.

Game Development & AI Affiliated Faculty:

Abbasi

Berente

Son