Study on digital ownership in the gaming industry and analysis of a possible new approach via the implementation of blockchain and non-fungible tokens.

Details

Supervisors

Chevalier, Ludovic

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

The objective of this master thesis is to study the feeling of digital ownership among gamers and the analysis of a new approach via the blockchain and non-fungible tokens. While the emergence of video games took place in the mid-20s, it is only in the early 2000s that they are democratized and installed in our living rooms just like books, DVDs or music CDs. Some even consider the gaming industry as the cultural industry of the 21st century. Indeed, even though it has only recently emerged, its worldwide turnover generated twice as much revenue as the film and music industries combined in 2019. The development of video games is closely linked to the development of technology. With this evolution, video games have gradually left the physical world to join the digital world, leading to a change in our relationship to the ownership of our video game assets. While it used to be possible to exchange and even resell our video games, with the digitization of these, it has become almost impossible, making us lose our ownership of them. Add to this that the economic model of video games has changed over time, leading to the advent of "free-to-play" games but also the integration of microtransactions in almost all the new video games. Therefore, in addition to the question of the ownership of digital video games, there is also the question of our relationship to the ownership of the digital items within them. The fact that we no longer possess ownership of these assets cannot be disputed. Do video game players feel this loss of ownership? What is their point of view regarding digital ownership in the gaming industry? Are there any solutions to this issue?