Library and Learning Services: Game Development: How to Start a Gaming Business

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How to Start a Gaming Business

The gaming industry has experienced great growth in recent years, facilitated by technological advancements, widespread adoption of gaming platforms and the increasing popularity of esports. Here are some considerations to take into account when starting a gaming business such as defining your gaming business concept, considering your intellectual property and being aware of cybersecurity issues.

7 steps in starting a gaming business:

Intellectual property (IP):

The gaming industry is a significant economic driver in Canada and is growing rapidly through direct video game and console sales, streaming sites like Twitch and YouTube Gaming and even feature film franchises. You should understand what can be done to protect IP in video games and what exactly can be protected. For example, IP can be protected in a variety of ways with:

Copyright
Trademark
Industrial design
Patent

To learn more about how IP can be protected, check out Martin Shortt's podcast on the Canadian Intellectual Property Office's website which explains the IP rights and associated contracts that are involved with the videogaming industry.

Cybersecurity Concerns:

Some people may not think about cybersecurity in the video gaming industry, but there are security concerns to consider. The Government of Canada reports that cyber criminals frequently target gamers’ accounts to harvest their personal data.

Some issues to consider in the video gaming industry include:

Financial information
Personal information
Data security
Network security
Platform integrity
Player trust
In-game items

For more information about cybersecurity concerns which impact the video gaming industry, consider reading:,

The State of Cybersecurity in Canada 2025 (Canadian Cybersecurity Network)
From Pixels to Protection: A Comprehensive Review of Cybersecurity in the Gaming Industry
Cybersecurity research guide.

Information from: https://www.wix.com/blog/how-to-start-a-gaming-business

Digital Gaming and the Advertising Landscape by Teresa de la Hera
ISBN: 9462987157

Publication Date: 2019

The evolution of the game industry and changes in the advertising landscape in recent years have led to a keen interest of marketers in using digital games for advertising purposes. However, despite the increasing interest in this marketing strategy, the potential of digital games as a medium to convey advertising messages remains unexploited. Digital Gaming and the Advertising Landscape explores the different ways advertising messages can be embedded within digital games. An interdisciplinary approach is used to help explain how persuasive communication works within digital games. It does so by forging new links within the area of game studies where the emphasis of this book clearly lies, while also taking up new subjects such as design theories and their relation to games as well as how this relationship may be used in a practical context.
One up : creativity, competition, and the global business of video games by Dreunen, Joost van
ISBN: 9780231552219

Publication Date: 2020

One Up offers a pioneering empirical analysis of innovation and strategy in the video games industry to explain how it has gone from the fringe to the mainstream. Drawing on almost twenty years of practical and academic experience in the interactive entertainment field, Joost van Dreunen analyzes how business model innovation has made the video game industry what it is today. Covering more than three decades of industry data, he demonstrates that video game companies flourish when they bring the same level of creativity to business strategy as they do to game design.
The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist by Brendan Keogh
ISBN: 9780262545402

Publication Date: 2023

The videogame industry, we're invariably told, is a multibillion-dollar, high-tech business conducted by large corporations in certain North American, European, and East Asian cities. But most videogames today, in fact, are made by small clusters of people working on shoestring budgets, relying on existing, freely available software platforms, and hoping, often in vain, to rise to stardom-in short, people working like artists. Aiming squarely at this disconnect between perception and reality, The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist presents a much more accurate and nuanced picture of how the vast majority of videogame-makers work-a picture that reveals the diverse and precarious communities, identities, and approaches that make videogame production a significant cultural practice. Drawing on insights provided by over 400 game developers across Australia, North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, Brendan Keogh develops a new framework for understanding videogame production as a cultural field in all its complexity.