The role of platforms in the world of video games

The video game industry is one of the leading economic sectors of the entertainment industry in our present days. The revenues of video game sales are significant in the European Union, Germany realized 5,97 billion, the UK realized 5,51 billion and France realized 3,99 billion dollars of revenues from the video game industry in 2020.

The aim of this research project is to give an overview about the impacts of video games on the individual, society and the economy and draw attention to those regulatory challenges, which emerge due to the appearance of new business models and platforms connected to video games. The use of different platforms is significant in the gaming environment as well, and as such, the project aims to identify and separate their main attributes.

The research consist of three workflows: 

Workflow 1: the exploration of the regulatory landscape of video games in Europe. This workflow mainly consists of the identification of those Hungarian, EU and international pieces of legislation, which play a role in video game regulation. The scope of the research cover the following areas of law: 

a.    copyright law
b.    media law, 
c.    e-commerce law, 
d.    civil law (with special regard to software licence and software development contracts), 
e.    competition law.

Besides the classic form of legislative initiatives the instruments of video game self-regulation shall also be considered (such as the PEGI system) and soft-law norms (WIPO). 

Workflow 2: setting up a typology for gaming platforms, coining a definition for each category. Currently the term ’gaming platform’ is used very widely and it may cover certain video game consoles and PC-s, cloud-gaming services that are becoming popular in our present days, game streaming services – such as Twitch – and digital distribution services such as Steam. Making a  clear distinction between these services is not always unequivocal as some of the mentioned providers offer multisided services (for example Steam’s main function is to digitally distribute games, but has a game streaming option and social media page as well). 

Workflow 3: Analysing the specific regulatory constructs applicable to identified platform-types, the assessment of their terms and conditions. The workflow may have a double-sided approach: on the B2C side the research will aim to examine those restrictions that govern the users’ behaviour when using the service. An example of this is Twitch, which recently has an issue with streamers uploading content with copyrighted background music. On the B2B side those relationship between the developers and platforms will be examined. A notable example to such a relationship is the debate between Epic Games and Apple.

Researchers participating in the project:

Kinga Sorbán, Árpád Rab

Events: 

„Játék az élet” – Videójátékok a társadalomban és a tudományban