Key Resources in Game Developers’ Business Models

This paper presents the results of the research on key resources exploited under business models of video game developers. The main attention is paid to the identification and hierarchizing of key resources, as well as their specific types. It should be noticed that the reported study takes into account diversification of video game developers in terms of monetization models exploited, i.e. premium, freemium, or hybrid, which seems to be novel.In general, the findings locate people together with their tacit, experience-based knowledge at the top of the key resources hierarchy. Nevertheless, the results show that there are differences in perception and exploitation of the key resources among the considered types of game developers. Interestingly, only those with the premium monetization model point at tacit organizational knowledge as a specific type of key resources exploited under their business model. Moreover, the identified relational resources – although not considered in the business model canvas approach – are acknowledged only by developers using the hybrid monetization model. Last but not least, physical resources are seen as non-key ones by all the considered types of game developers