Games

Games as culture, games as heritage

Games currently play a very minor role in national cultural policy - which the industry addressed in 2020, through the media and with a parliamentary pamphlet addressed to the House of Representatives, among others means (Sala et al. 2020, Maessen 2020; see also Schavemaker 2022). Although few structural changes are visible in 2023, there appears to be a shift in focus on games from other industries and politics (see Maessen, 2023a). However, subsidy opportunities for game developers within the Netherlands are still quite limited. They mainly rely on the Creative Industries Fund NL(Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie), in particular the 'Digital culture'scheme. In the period 2019-2023, the fund provided around 300.000 to 420.000 euros in subsidies annually to game projects (Otterlo 2021a, 2022a, 2024). This is considerably less than the amounts our neighbouring countries invest in their national game industries. The lack of government subsidies in the Dutch context is problematic. Developing a game often takes years of work, which means considerable investment is required before they can be returned. The Midgame Fund was therefore established by Dutch game makers in 2021. Through it, 35 investors are trying to close the pre-funding gap with investments of up to 150.000 euros, in exchange for a limited part of the turnover which the fund can invest in new games. In the first nine months, the fund invested 300.000 euros in three games (Otterlo 2021d). Another three projects were added in 2023, meaning the fund has now invested a total of 500.000 euros in new games.   

Although the role of games in cultural policy is small, their role as a cultural medium is growing. Games combine cultural forms such as film, literature, music, architecture, design and visual arts, yet their interactive features make games more than the sum of their parts. For instance, games make it possible to explore digital worlds with complete freedom or and allow players to shape them as cocreators. They put the player directly in the shoes of a protagonist, making them responsible for decisions and their impact. In this way, games create unique, personal and 'immersive' experiences. Increasingly, these are also personal stories of creators or stories that touch on important social issues. For example, games can be used to improve the physical and mental health of people over 60 (Gutiérrez-Pérez et al. 2023).    

Furthermore, games are increasingly becoming part of other cultural domains. The examples are numerous. Consider for instance filmmakers using game technology and increasingly making films and series based on games, the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics consisting largely of video game music, games which can contribute to the reconstruction of heritage sites, the Reading Coalition (Leescoalitie) launching a reading promotion project around game stories, and Museum Belvédère organising an exhibition on game art in autumn 2021 (Gestel 2020, Handy 2023, Harty 2022, McWhertor 2020, Bibliotheeknetwerk 2021, Museum Belvédère 2021). A broader development is that (major) games are turning into (social) platforms that also provide space for activities other than play - also called the metaverse (Newzoo 2021). These include cultural activities, such as digital concerts or tours of virtually simulated museums (Carpenter 2020, Vergauwen 2021).  

If games are seen as culture, then it is also important to safeguard them as cultural heritage. This is also an urgent issue, because games as heritage are very vulnerable, for instance because of how and where they can be archived (Maessen, 2023b). Currently, there are several private collectionsin the Netherlands, and Dutch games are curated by Sound and Vision(Beeld en Geluid). To reinforce these efforts, it would be important to, on the one hand, have a legal mandate for archiving games and an adequate budget for this, and, on the other hand, for the industry to also take care of its own history and donate games to archives. 

A (too?) wide range of new games

Similarly to the film and music industries, the way games are distributed has completely changed in the past decade. Whereas a decade ago the majority of games were sold on physical carriers such as DVDs and Blu-rays, now most games are downloaded or streamed via digital shops. By 2023, 95 per cent of global game sales came from digital distribution channels (Batchelor, 2023a).  

It is almost impossible to underestimate the impact of this change, as digital distribution ushered in a major broadening of the gaming landscape. It opened the market for small studios - so-called indies - to reach a global audience independent of publishers and digital shops. Here, developers also found an increasing space for innovative content, artistic experimentation and smaller-scale experiences than games had offered until then. Simultaneously, more and more programmes and tools to develop games also became available, making game design feasible for a growing number of developers.

The industry's growth is evident in a (perhaps too) large supply. For instance, on Steam - one of the largest digital shops for PC games - in 2023 more than 9,000 new games were published (SteamSpy z.j.). This is a slight decrease from 2022, when more than 10,000 games were added. The mobile Google Play Store in 2023 featured a total of 500,000 games. Moreover, new games do not just compete with other new content. Some games remain popular for years, sometimes because the developer also adds new content over the years. The large selection makes it difficult for new games to stand out, requiring developers to invest more in marketing, engaging publishers more often and offering frequent and large discounts. While this large supply certainly has drawbacks, overproduction is also characteristic of a creative and cultural industry struggling with demand uncertainty. This means that it is uncertain which games are going to be successful, which would make it better to produce more (as also described by Fürst et al. 2023).

Changing revenue models

With the democratisation of game development, there are more and more people and companies hoping to make money from game development, and with ever-increasing demand, there is also more money to be made. The most commonly used revenue models for game developers worldwide are 'pay to download' and 'free to download' (50% and 36% respectively) (GDC, 2023). A report on the value of a 'European Video Games Society' in 2023 identified three elements of revenue models for games that can be combined, including subscription services, microtransactions and advertisements in games (Ecorys & KEA, 2023). In subscription services, a user pays a fixed amount per month for access to a large selection of games (Wijman 2019). In 2020, international research found that 35 per cent of respondents used at least one subscription service (Jaeger et al. 2020); the share of such subscription services in total gaming industry revenue was around 4 per cent. This revenue model seems to play a bigger role due to cloud gaming: this allows people to play games on almost any device, as the games are 'hosted' on servers maintained by cloud providers (Ecorys & KEA, 2023). Microtransactions are also a commonly used revenue model: this refers to purchases you make within a (often free) game (such as cosmetic upgrades), season passes or loot boxes. Loot boxes in particular have been in the news a lot. Often, players pay for these digital loot boxes with real money, without knowing whether they are getting something valuable or worthless. As one of the first countries in the world, the Netherlands and Belgium therefore actively acted against loot boxes (Bright, 2022) and the issue is now also being addressed at the European level (Batchelor, 2023b).   

Another type of transaction that received a lot of attention especially in early 2022 is the non-fungible token (NFT). NFTs are unique ownership tokens of digital objects, recorded on the blockchain. In a game, for example, a player with an NFT could be the unique owner of a special weapon, which the player could then resell. In 2022, however, the number of Dutch companies using NFTs was only 6%. Opinions also vary on the use of NFTs as a revenue model. For example, creators are concerned about the impact of NFTs on game design and the ethical implications, for example due to the gambling elements introduced by the use of NFTs (Dutch Game Garden 2024).

A recent consequence of the rise of these revenue models is an almost unprecedented buyout trend in which publishers and game studios are being acquired by large(er) companies. In January 2022 alone, three major acquisitions worth $85 billion were announced - more than had been spent on acquisitions in the whole of 2021. In 2023, this trend continued: Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty and Candy Crush) (Maessen, 2023c). One of the reasons for this is that it allows the companies to acquire content for their subscription services: the more studios (and licences owned by these studios) are part of your company, the more games you can add (exclusively or not) to your own subscription service. Furthermore, specific expertise is purchased through acquisitions, for instance in the field of games as a service (Elliot 2022, Maessen 2022a, see also Maessen 2022b).

Working on diversity, equity and inclusion

It is becoming increasingly clear that the notion that gamers are mainly young, white, heterosexual men (GLAAD, 2024) needs to be challenged. For instance, data from VGFN (2023) showed that almost half of all players in the Netherlands are women, and gaming is also popular among the LGBTQIA+ community worldwide: according to GLAAD, 17% of active gamers identify themselves as LGBTQ (GLAAD, 2024) Also, not only young people game: 37% of all Dutch people between 45 and 65 years old play games from time to time (Maessen, 2022c).   

However, the consequences of this misconception manifest in many ways. For one, the gaming industry mainly employs white men. In 2018, only 19% of those employed in the Dutch gaming industry were women - internationally, in 2023, the figure was 23% (Grinsven et al. 2018, GDC 2023). In 2021, the number of women employed in the Dutch gaming industry increased to 23 per cent (Dutch Game Garden 2024). Data on game developers worldwide show that creators are predominantly white, at 65% (GDC, 2023). A survey of over 1.100 (mainly US) developers showed that the number of developers from the LGBTQIA+ community and developers with disabilities was slightly above average (IGDA 2019). Important opportunities therefore remain in attracting a more diverse workforce. Workers in the Dutch gaming industry see opportunities to achieve this through adjustments to the language in job advertisements, a collective labour agreement, payments for overtime, gender-neutral restrooms, flexible working hours, home office opportunities and sick leave (Kocken, 2022). There is also increasing attention at the international level to what unionisation could mean for the gaming industry and what that should look like in an industry characterised by small-scale production in local contexts (Keogh & Abraham, 2024).  

Underrepresentation and discrimination are also a problems in games themselves. This manifests in who is and is not represented in games and in what manner. In 2022, 40% of respondents to the Games Monitor Survey (Dutch Game Garden 2024) said they consider diversity and inclusion in game design and development. For example, it appears that women, characters of colour, LGBTQIA+ individuals, those with disabilities, those from an older age group or those who are overweight are much less represented, if at all (Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media et al. 2021). Besides being underrepresented, these different characters are often portrayed according to stereotypes. For instance, women are much more likely to appear with revealing clothing or (partially) naked on screen than male characters (Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media et al 2021).   

These relationships contribute to the fact that sexual harassment and transgressive behaviour are common, not only for gamers but also in the workplace. In recent years, this was revealed especially in large foreign companies (Hermus 2021b, Otterlo 2021c), but in earlier years, our interviewees from the Dutch industry also revealed that they have encountered or experienced examples of such behaviour throughout their careers. Gamers also suffer from transgressive behaviour. For instance, women and girls who game online often face sexist behaviour and harassment - also outside the games (Wells et al. 2021). More than half of gamers who identify as LGBTQ also report experiencing harassment when gaming online. 42% of this group avoided playing certain games for fear of experiencing such behaviour, and 27% stopped playing a game because of harassment (GLAAD, 2024).   

Although the games industry has a long way to go in terms of diversity, more and more people are making efforts in this regard. There are now many initiatives and organizations working on this, such as: Women in Games, AbleGamers, the Dutch  Games [4Diversity] and HiPerks . Their work contributes to increasing attention to diversity and inclusion at events, in the media, but also in games themselves. Characters from minority groups are still not sufficiently represented, but there is a visible increase in games with more inclusive characters or the option to shape characters yourself (Hermus 2021a, Havermans 2020). In The Sims, for example, it became possible to create characters with a binder, scars, hearing aids and a greater variety of skin tones (Maessen, 2023d). Games are also increasingly getting more options that make them more accessible to players with disabilities (Wijman 2020). The number of developers who say they work at studios working on diversity and inclusion remained at about the same level in 2023 as in 2021: around 60 percent (GDC 2021).