Paidic Money and Ludic Gambling Currencies in Novel Slot Machine Games

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Kinnunen Jani
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

 

Free-to-Play Games: Professionals’ Perspectives

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Alha Kati Koskinen Elina Paavilainen Janne Hamari Juho Kinnunen Jani
2014 DiGRA Nordic '14: Proceedings of the 2014 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

This paper investigates the free-to-play revenue model from the perspective of game professionals. To court larger player audiences and to address their wide willingness-to-pay spectrum, game developers have increasingly adopted the free-to-play revenue model. However, at the same, worrying concerns over the revenue model have been voiced. For example, free-to-play games have been deemed as exploitative and unethical. We investigated this contrast by conducting a thematic interview study. We employed grounded theory in the analysis of the data containing 14 game professionals’ interviews about their views on the free-to-play model. The results show, that the free-to-play model is something that the developers view favorably while the public writing about the games can even be hostile. The games have evolved, while the voiced opinions still talk about games of the beginning of the model. Relatively few ethical problems were seen that would address the whole model, and the future of the free-to-play games was seen bright.

 

Gambling in Social Networks: Gaming Experiences of Finnish Online Gamblers

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Kinnunen Jani Rautio Erkka Alha Kati Paavilainen Janne
2012 DiGRA Nordic '12: Proceedings of 2012 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

Online gambling is often regarded as asocial activity. Previously players could not interact with each other in online environments. The situation has changed as internet, in general, has evolved towards a more social environment. First Finnish online gambling games, eBingo and online poker, which enabled in-game social interaction were opened in the year 2010. This article reports findings from the study which focused on the social interaction connected with these games. Based on the questionnaire data of 409 players 16 players were selected for the thematic interviews. The analysis of the interviews indicates that even if social interaction is not necessary in order to play, it is meaningful in players’ experience of the game. The different levels of sociality before, during and/or after the game have an influence on the construction of gaming experiences and connect gambling as meaningful part of players’ social networks.