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This study provides empirical support for a link between video game play and likelihood to major in a STEM field.

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study investigates whether adolescents who play video games are more likely than those who do not to choose a STEM field major in college, and if other characteristics explain this relationship.

Results from a nested series of logistic regression models show that – compared to those who do not play video games in adolescence – teens who play video games are 70% more likely to major in a STEM field when they attend college.

The Add Health dataset allows for empirical verification of the link between video game play and STEM major choice, but it is dated. Future research should use more recent data. Factors such as gaming platform and game genre are likely to be key variables in future research.

This finding lends support for including video game play as a potential factor in future studies on college major choice, and offers further empirical support for utilizing video games as a potential gateway into STEM.

Going beyond previous research, this study finds that playing commercial video games may be one entry point to STEM fields, and implies that it is important to understand the impact of games that millions of young people play.

CSS 11: Strategy

Undergraduate or Graduate Capstone Course in Management or Marketing.

Electronic Arts is one of the premiere video game software developers in the world. With the changing video game industry, evolving tastes and preferences, the introduction of next generation platforms and supporting various mobile platforms, Electronics Arts has important decisions to make as it charts its future.

The analysis seeks to fulfil several objectives relevant to management and marketing strategy courses, where analysis of the external environment of a firm is important. Students should be able to do the following: identify the relevant content to include in an industry analysis. Understand the key concepts of strategic analysis and how to apply them. Use the analytical tools of strategy to synthesize information from multiple sources into a comprehensive picture of an industry. Provide an overview of the dynamics and near-term future of this industry. Use industry analysis to explore emerging markets, billing options and where to target company resources.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between general market demands and consumption levels of professional sport consumers. This study was accomplished through: (a) validating the theoretical constructs of general market demand variables by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis, (b) examining the predictability of general market demand factors to consumption levels of live and televised sporting events, and (c) investigating the relationships between sociodemographic and general market demand factors. Five hundred and twenty-five residents of a major southern US city were interviewed using a questionnaire that included eight sociodemographic variables, 12 market demand variables under three factors (Game Attractiveness, Economic Consideration, and Marketing Promotion), and 10 professional sporting event consumption variables. The factor structure of the general market demand variables was confirmed. Regression analyses revealed that market demand factors were positively (p < .05) predictive of professional sport consumption. Sociodemographic variables were significantly (p < .05) related to the market demand factors. The findings imply that professional sport teams should highlight the market demand variables and adopt differential marketing procedures for various sociodemographic segments in their marketing practice.

This paper aims to shed some light on the role of video games within the media industry and IT sector, on its contribution to the production and distribution of digital content in emerging economies. It offers a case study on the role of mobile devices as a factor of transformation and shows how under changing socio–economic conditions, the transformations enabled the creation of digital ecosystems and innovative business models.

The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature and trade press and comments from experts and industry players.

The paper argues that as the internet is going mobile, driven by data – mostly video – the new mobile platforms are becoming the key for the distribution of content and mobile games. Whether it is the history of browser games in China, mobile games in India or PC games in Russia, each national gaming industry has required a unique strategy for making money, building on some prominent cultural factors and adapting to the local economic conditions. The paper reveals that video games are now clearly a vital part of digital content production in these countries, while stressing upon the role of public policies.

The paper relies mostly on industry and consultancy data, as in such a fast-changing environment official data even when accessible are in most cases too old to remain relevant to identify the trends and the fast changing stakes. This calls for some caution about the data. Therefore, the data used should be treated as just signals of potential trends, sufficient to provide an appropriate overview of the evolution of the global mobile ecosystem.

This paper shows that the video games industry can serve as a pivot for the ICT industry. Besides, this prompts upstream and downstream industries of the entire digital entertainment market to thrive.

The paper shows that companies from emerging markets companies have been betting on a combination of factors: the development of the economies, the growth of the mobile market, emerging middle-classes and young customers. It provides a growth model that appears to be close to a “regular” industrial growth model.

Although there is a growing academic literature on the video games industry, few research have been devoted to specific issues of emerging economies and to the role of video games within the media industry and IT sector.

As an exploratory study, the purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying motivations for attending soccer games.

Attendees at two soccer games in Athens, Greece were surveyed about their frequency of attendance at soccer games and their attitudes toward soccer. In total, 252 people from five randomly selected sections of the stadiums participated in the survey.

The results indicate that there are three major motivations – emotional excitement, socialization, and soccer atmospherics – and two identity salience factors – ardent soccer fans and rational soccer fans – for attending soccer games. The most important factor for attendance is being an ardent soccer fan closely followed by the emotional excitement factor. Among the demographic factors considered, only gender significantly affects soccer game attendance.

In contrast to previous studies that are somewhat descriptive, this research explicitly introduces factors related to social identity theory and attempts to predict soccer game attendance on the basis of a scale of factors that focus on the major motivations for attendance of soccer games, identity salience reasons, and demographic factors. The inclusion of social identity theory as a factor in the attendance of soccer games is a major contribution of this study. Contrary to most of the earlier studies, this study showed that the socialization factor is not related to attendance at soccer games.

According to Harvard historian Crane Brinton, “…a cynical democracy, a democracy whose citizens profess in this world one set of beliefs and live another, is wholly impossible. No such society can long endure anywhere. The tension between the ideal and the real may be resolved in many ways in a healthy society; but it can never be taken as non-existent” (Brinton, 1950, p. 249).

This study aims to examine the problems of the concession system that Macao has long-term adopted to regulate its gaming industry and discuss alternatives.

Theoretical reflection was used to provide qualitatively different insights about governmental supervision of the gaming industry.

Two options for reform are proposed: (1) replace the concession system with a licensing system that does not restrict the number of concessionaires or the period of concession or (2) adopt a modified form of the concession system that changes the number of concessionaires, period of concessions and methods for selecting concessionaires.

This study’s results have implications for the Macao government and other gaming jurisdictions in Asia.

This study provides a comprehensive examination of the concession system for governmental supervision of the gaming industry.

This research examined the social interactions of online game players based on the proposed motivation model in order to understand the transitions of motivation of online game. The authors also separated samples into four categories to compare the difference of different type of online game players.

This study proposed a motivation model for online game player based on existence–relatedness–growth theory. The authors also analyze the transitions of motivations via first-order and second-order Markov chain switching model to obtain the journey of online to offline socialization.

Teamwork–socialization players preferred to make friends in their online gaming network to socialize. Competition–socialization players were mostly students who played games to compete and socialize and may share experience in online or offline activities. Teamwork–mechanics players purely derived pleasure from gaming and were not motivated by other factors in their gaming activities. Competition–mechanics players may already have friends with other gamers in real life.

More samples can be added to generate more generalizable findings and the proposed motivation model can be extended by other motivations related to online gaming behavior. The authors proposed a motivation model for online to offline socialization and separated online game players into four categories: teamwork–socialization, competition–socialization, teamwork–mechanics and competition–mechanics. The category of teamwork–socialization may contribute to online to offline socialization area. The category of competition–mechanics may add value to the area of traditional offline socialization. The categories of competition–socialization and teamwork–mechanics may help extant literature understand critical stimulus for online gaming behavior.

The authors’ findings can help online gaming industry understand the motivation journey of players through transition. Different types of online games may have various online game player's journey that can assist companies in improving the quality of online games. Online game companies can also offer official community to players for further interaction and experience exchange or the platform for offline activities in the physical environment.

This research proposed a novel motivation model to examine online to offline socializing behavior for online game research. The motivations in model were interconnected via the support of literature. The authors also integrated motivations by Markov chain switching model to obtain the transitions of motivational status. It is also the first attempt to analyze first-order and second-order Markov chain switching model for analysis. The authors’ research examined the interconnected relationships among motivations in addition to the influential factors to online gaming behavior from previous research. The results may contribute to extend the understanding of online to offline socialization in online gaming literature.

Advergames, or integrated brand messages within digital games, have received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. Despite increased use of advergames as a brand promotion strategy by a range of well-known brands, limited understanding exists about a number of issues related to the effective use of such games. This paper aims to critically review the literature on advergames by performing a detailed analysis of existing research in this area and propose an organizing framework. Based on this framework, the authors discuss key issues with current understanding and propose important questions for future research.

This literature review follows Webster and Watson’s (2002) concept-driven systematic review methodology elaborating on the key antecedents and consequences identified in advergame studies (what we know: current knowledge), followed by the discussion of key factors that should be investigated as antecedents and consequences (literature gaps).

This paper presents a review and synthesis of advergame studies based on Terlutter and Capella’s (2013) integrated marketing communication framework. It identifies game, individual and social factors and suggests how these factors could affect a consumer’s brand-related cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral responses. The authors further propose an advergame framework that identifies two different “unit of analysis” (antecedents and consequences of game factors and antecedents and consequences of individual and social factors), which can be used by scholars to center their research efforts in a more detailed fashion.

Research questions posed in this literature review indicate that future research in the area of advergames should focus on investigating the effects of various game, individual and social factors on consumers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral responses.

The advergame framework provided here provides firms with a guide to the factors that may affect their consumers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral responses and helps them in developing effective advergames.

The paper provides a comprehensive review of the advergame literature that has not been done before and develops a general advergame framework that can be applied in all contexts and will guide future studies in the area. Overall, the study helps the researchers to identify critical issues and concepts related to advergames and shapes future research in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize ways in which game theory has been or could be utilized within the humanitarian sector and to identify future research opportunities in this field. Game theory is a tool for modeling systems in which multiple decision makers act according to their own objectives and where individual choices affect system outcomes. Humanitarian logistics systems are often characterized by the presence of many such decision makers.

The authors synthesize literature from operations research, humanitarian logistics, and the political and management sciences that describes either game theory models or settings in which game theory has the potential to contribute practical insights. Papers are categorized based on the types of decision makers highlighted and the facets of humanitarian operations described.

The review of literature indicates that applications of game theory to humanitarian supply chain systems are limited to date but that many components of humanitarian operations can benefit from such study.

The literature on game theory in humanitarian supply chains is still emerging. The findings imply opportunities for researchers to advance both theoretical and practical understanding in this area.

Current research provides some managerial insights to humanitarian practitioners, but future practice-driven research could increase the impact of game theory models in the humanitarian sector.

This work reviews past research contributions in the area of game theory and humanitarian operations and recommends areas for future research.