Peliyhteisöjen ja yhteisöjohtamisen potentiaali ja roolit PC-peliyrityksille

Video games have grown into a multibillion dollar industry and is expected to exceed 118 billion dollars by 2019. In the past 20 years, the video game industry has become a serious contributor in global entertainment industries. 63% of U.S. households have at least one person who plays video games more than 3 hours per week and 65% of the households own a device used to play video games. The relationship between players and game developers or publishers has become an important part of the business model in the games industry. By utilizing the gaming community, it is possible to generate more content for the game with the same the development budget. Some video game companies have successfully outsourced parts of the game design and development process to customers by enabling consumers to implement their own creations into the final product. The goal of the study is to understand the potential and roles game communities have in relation to the PC based game companies, and the effects community management has on them. The creative and innovative capacities of communities have been studied for over a decade, but how the firms actually handle the communities of users and what the nature of their relationship is has not received enough attention. To get more information about this relationship a survey for game industry professionals and players was created. The scope of the study was limited to PC games. From the respondents of the survey five user groups were identified: average users, players, testers, developers and professional game developers. Average users seek information while players, testers and developers contribute to game development as well as help other users and contribute to the community. The presence of the professional game developers in the community is important as it helps to create trust and communication with the users motivates knowledge sharing