Safe and responsible gaming: Examining sustainability metrics and ambitions in the Finnish mobile gaming industry

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School of Business | Master's thesis

Date

2022

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Information and Service Management (ISM)

Language

en

Pages

95

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Abstract

This thesis explores the state of sustainability in the Finnish mobile gaming industry by analyzing qualitative interview data with inductive data coding approach. The data is made up of one-on-one interviews of six Finnish video gaming companies with varying sizes and sustainability approaches. The study uses Elkington’s (1994) triple bottom line (TBL, 3Ps model) and an empirical safe and responsible gaming framework as a base. TBL bases on three dimensions, namely people, planet and profit, and the idea that sustainability can be found from where the three meet. The empirical framework was specifically designed to be applied for safe and responsible gaming in the mobile gaming context. To date, exhaustive sustainability frameworks for Finnish mobile gaming are not publicly available. This thesis addresses the gap by exploring TBL framework in the gaming context to understand and manage sustainability in the industry. Special focus is on mobile gaming and free to play (F2P) games, which are monetized through in app purchases (IAP). The findings of this study revealed that to accurately depict how sustainability is understood in the Finnish gaming industry, TBL should be adapted to include a fourth dimension, players, resulting in a 3+1Ps model. The added dimension focuses on the experienced performance of the product, which is an important aspect as games are made to be experienced. There is still plenty of work to do to reach a truly sustainable state in gaming. However, Finnish gaming companies have put a lot of resources into sustainability work for years and seem to be moving into the right direction. Further research is still needed on the topic, and the findings of this thesis can act as a base when studying sustainability in the industry further and developing the 3+1P model.

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Thesis advisor

Tuunainen, Virpi

Keywords

sustainability measurement, triple bottom line, mobile gaming, sustainability indicators, qualitative content analysis, non-financial performance measurement

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