Governance Challenges in the Global Games Industry

Abstract

The current governance challenges facing the global games industry are heavily dominated by online games. Whilst much academic and industry attention has been afforded to Virtual Worlds, the more pressing contemporary challenges may arise in casual games, especially when found on social networks. As authorities are faced with an increasing volume of disputes between participants and platform operators, the likelihood of external regulation increases, and the role that such regulation would have on the industry – both internationally and within specific regions – is unclear. Similarly, as we increasingly see developers push the bounds of what is reasonable and morally or legally acceptable, regulatory issues are likely to come to the forefront, and set a precedent for the future regulation of games, not only on these platforms, but more generally. 2 TheNextWeb (Zainzinger, 2012) state that 53% of Facebook users play social games, and according to Facebook's IPO filing Zynga accounts for 12% of Facebook's revenue. It is also noted that the top five 'casino' games on Facebook – Texas HoldEm Poker, Slotomania, DoubleDown Casino, Bingo Blitz and Best Casino – draw over 11 million users daily, and that approximately 20% of gamers have paid for in-game benefits with Facebook Credits, citing Christopher Jenke, COO of Crowdpark, as stating, " It's about teasing out that human instinct that two four-year-olds already have when they bet each other 'I can run faster than you'. That human demeanor of challenging one another fits perfectly into the social network, where you're only a mouse click away from, for example, all your classmates " . The article suggests an increasing merger of social networks and gambling, with social games reaching 290 million players a month on Facebook, and the online gambling industry quoted at $30.3billion, and the article notes that late 2011 saw gambling companies given permission to