Final Fantasy – Securing On-Line Gaming with Trusted Computing

This chapter aims to achieve two primary objectives. First, it maps the landscape of gaming platforms and their value creation strategies in relation to established platform business models in the literature. Second, it delves into a unique value creation approach specific to gaming platforms: the interplay between virtual game economies and real-world economies.Digital gaming platforms have a long history, dating back to university mainframe computers in the 1960s and evolving through arcade machines and gaming consoles in the 1970s and 1980s. These early platforms align with the concept of innovation platforms in contemporary literature. However, the gaming domain has been significantly transformed by the advent of big tech, introducing new platform companies, business logics, and value creation strategies in the domain. The first part of the chapter traces the historical development of gaming technologies from this perspective and identifies three types of digital platforms with distinct business approaches: consoles, big tech platforms, and web-based services.The second part of the chapter focuses on the unique value creation strategies in gaming, particularly the creation and conversion of value at the intersection of virtual and real economies. Virtual economies, such as those in digital games, incentivize microtransactions and have led to new business models. This section examines how gaming platforms have adapted and developed these models, comparing three different platform’s conversion of affective value into monetary value and the intersection of virtual and real economies.

This study aims to explore the participation preferences of players in Play-to-Earn (PTE) games, a topic of growing relevance as PTE games gain increasing attention. These games offer players the unique opportunity to earn real-world rewards through virtual gameplay activities. By examining the factors that drive players’ decision-making in PTE games, we deepen our understanding of the intersection between virtual economies and real-world financial needs. The insights from this study can provide game developers and policymakers with valuable information to design and implement effective strategies that support individuals seeking alternative income sources and new economic models in the face of unprecedented challenges. To determine the prioritization of motivating factors among PTE game players, we utilized the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis as part of a three-stage process: a literature review (Stage 1), expert evaluation (Stage 2), and AHP analysis (Stage 3). The study derived 12 critical factors in PTE gameplay from literature review, divided into three primary elements, each with four sub-factors. These primary factors include Gaming Experience (comprising Fun factor, Game Quality, Game Genre, and Challenge), Financial Outcomes (consisting of Tokenomics, ROI, Game Company Reliability, and Coin Price), and PTE Game Awareness (including Management, Game Entry Timing, Game Platform, and Community). This study uncovers the three primary factors that encourage participation in PTE games, with Gaming Experience emerging as the most critical, followed by Financial Outcomes and PTE Game Awareness. This finding underlines the need for game developers to prioritize the gaming experience to ensure the development and sustainability of PTE games.

Since years, online social networks have evolved from profile and communication websites to online portals where people interact with each other, share and consume multimedia-enriched data and play different types of games. Due to the immense popularity of these online games and their huge revenue potential, the number of these games increases every day, resulting in a current offering of thousands of online social games. In this paper, the applicability of neighborhood-based collaborative filtering (CF) algorithms for the recommendation of online social games is evaluated. This evaluation is based on a large dataset of an online social gaming platform containing game ratings (explicit data) and online gaming behavior (implicit data) of millions of active users. Several similarity metrics were implemented and evaluated on the explicit data, implicit data and a combination thereof. It is shown that the neighborhood-based CF algorithms greatly outperform the content-based algorithm, currently often used on online social gaming websites. The results also show that a combined approach, i.e., taking into account both implicit and explicit data at the same time, yields overall good results on all evaluation metrics for all scenarios, while only slightly performing worse compared to the strengths of the explicit or implicit only approaches. The best performing algorithms have been implemented in a live setup of the online game platform.

Objectives: The main objective of current study to explore the impact of employing Metaverse marketing (Presence, Avatar, Home Space, Teleporting, Interoperability, Privacy and Safety, Virtual Goods and Natural Interfaces) through gaming platforms and its influence on customer experience. Methods: The methodological approach of study was quantitative and deductive in its philosophical approach; a random sample of customers who play online games responded to (450) questionnaire. SPSS was employed in order to process and analyze primary data. Results: Results of analysis indicated that foundational concepts of Metaverse marketing had a statistically significant influence on customer experience with R= 0.862 and a variance of 74.3% in influence which accepted the main hypothesis of the study. Regarding the foundational concepts of metaverse marketing, it was see that all variables were influential in enriching customer experience in marketing, the highest influence was scored by natural interfaces with R= 0.784 and a variance of 61.4% in influence which indicated that the natural interfaces in metaverse marketing supported a better customer experience with the purchasing and marketing process. Recommendations:Study recommended the organizations should work harder into investments in digital real estate and crypto-currency. Further recommendations were presented.

The rapid growth of the online gaming industry has led to an increasing practice of online game top-ups, including those conducted by minors. This phenomenon raises legal concerns, as minors lack full legal capacity to perform binding legal acts, yet they are actively involved in digital transactions. This study aims to analyze the practice of online game top-ups by minors from the perspectives of positive law and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah. This research employs a normative-empirical legal method with a qualitative approach, using literature review and interviews as data collection techniques. The findings indicate that online game top-ups conducted by minors potentially involve legal defects due to the absence of legal capacity and weak age verification mechanisms on gaming platforms. From the perspective of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah, such practices tend to conflict with the objectives of protecting wealth (ḥifẓ al-māl) and intellect (ḥifẓ al-‘aql), as they may encourage consumptive behavior and dependency among minors. This study emphasizes the need to integrate positive law and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah to strengthen child protection in digital transactions.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0 or 4IR, could represent the twenty-first century’s rapid transformation of technologies, industries, and societal patterns and processes as a result of growing interconnectedness and intelligent automation. In relation to its technological aspect, the 4IR concerns automation and data exchange in various technologies and processes (Schwab, 2018). These consist of Artificial Intelligence (AI); Advanced Robotics; Cyber-Physical Systems; online social and gaming platforms; the Internet of Things (IoT) including the Internet of Military Things and the Industrial Internet of Things; Cloud Computing; Cognitive Computing; and many other technologies. Whilst these technologies have numerous potential “to raise global income levels and enhance the quality of life for populations” globally (Schwab, 2018), they simultaneously present a myriad of challenges that impact businesses, governments and the wider populations. Arguably, even more importantly, this technological revolution could have a significant impact on the national and international security landscape, influencing the likelihood and character of both cyber and conventional warfare. Likewise, as more powerful technologies emerge and become easier to utilise, individuals and groups such as terrorists or organised criminals will gain even more advanced capabilities to cause mass devastation and chaos (Schwab, 2018). Consequently, as cyberspace becomes more complex and ubiquitous, so do the tactics of modern cybercriminals and terrorist groups. The aforementioned technologies combined with anti-forensic tools and methods will all contribute to the offline and online arsenal of state and non-state adversaries and criminals.

The rapid growth of the online gaming industry has led to the rise of microtransactions, which have become a core component of the gaming experience. Valve Corporation, a prominent player in this industry, implemented a widely recognized microtransaction model through its platform. This study explored the factors influencing gamers in Bali to engage in microtransaction activities offered by Valve Corporation. Specifically, it investigated the effects of functional quality and price utility on purchase interest, with enjoyment serving as a mediating factor. The research targeted gamers in Bali who had previously engaged in microtransactions, employing an Accidental Sampling technique to collect data from 112 respondents. The analysis utilized Structural Equation Modeling - Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that functional quality and price utility both had significant positive effects on enjoyment and purchase interest. Furthermore, enjoyment not only directly influenced purchase interest but also mediated the effects of functional quality and price utility on purchase interest. These results highlight the critical role of enjoyment in shaping gamers’ decisions to participate in microtransactions, offering valuable insights for companies aiming to optimize their gaming platforms.

This article addresses recent approaches to uncovering and theorizing the design activities that occur in online gaming affinity spaces. Examples are presented of productive d/Discourse present within online forums around three video game series, video games, or game platforms, and key design practices engaged upon by gamers in these spaces. It is argued that these activities are, in part, consequences of the affordances and constraints of the games under discussion. Repurposing the ‘narratology vs. ludology’ debates, a taxonomy is presented which addresses how designed aspects of the games may shape both narrative and ludic (game-mechanic) forms of design. Finally, the forms of these design activities are contrasted with predominant approaches present within formal learning environments.

Article impact statement: Online games can improve the collection of data on human decision-making in situations relevant to conservation and stakeholder trade-offs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

As the rise in popularity of online games, the users start exchanging rare items for real money. As RMT (Real Money Trade) is prevalent, GFG (Gold Farming Group) who abuse RMT shows up. GFG causes social problems such as identity theft, privacy leaks. Because they needs many bot characters to gather game items. In addition, GFG induce RMT that makes in-game problems such as a destroying game economy, account hacking. Therefore, It is very important work to collapse GFG at the perspective of social and in-game. In this paper, we proposed a fundamental method for detecting RMT buyers for the collapse of GFG at the perspective of buyer by Law of Demand and Supply. We found two type of RMT by analyzing actual game data and detected RMT buyers with high recall ratio of 98% by ruled-based detection.

Convergence and Cosmopolitanism in Online Games: Non-Japanese Players on Japanese Final Fantasy XIV Servers

Online social media and games are increasingly replacing offline social activities. Social media is now an indispensable mode of communication; online gaming is not only a genuine social activity but also a popular spectator sport. Although online interaction shrinks social and geographical barriers, it is argued that social disparities, such as gender inequality, persists. For instance, online gaming communities have been criticized for objectifying women, which is a pressing question as gaming evolves into a social platform. However, few large-scale, systematic studies of gender inequality and objectification in social gaming platforms exist. Here we analyze more than one billion chat messages from Twitch, a social game-streaming platform, to study how the gender of streamers is associated with the nature of conversation. We find that female streamers receive significantly more objectifying comments while male streamers receive more game- related comments. This difference is more pronounced for popular streamers. We also show that the viewers’ choice of channels is also strongly gendered. Our findings suggest that gendered conversation and objectification is prevalent, and most users produce strongly gendered messages.

In the past decade, online games have become an important electronic commerce application. A good understanding of customer online game behaviors is critical for both researchers and practitioners, such as game vendors and game developers. Many researchers focus their studies on the consumers’ intention to play online games. However, the industry becomes more and more interested in the key factors to retain customers. To tackle the retention problem, this paper proposes a research framework of online game play loyalty. Based on this framework, thirteen hypotheses were developed and tested through a survey in U.S. universities. Overall, the results indicate the following: 1) Online game technology factors, such as the game story, game graphics, game length, game control and online game services, have significant impact on players’ game enjoyment; 2) Game enjoyment and social norms have positive effects on intention to play; 3) Social norms, quality of online game community and intention to play are important predictors of online game loyalty.Keywordsonline gamesloyaltyintentionenjoyment

Research background: The critical role of online games in e-commerce and the great competition among providers to enhance market share has significantly increased the need to use effective advertising patterns, techniques, and tools to attract users. There are two significant challenges to planning online media game selection. The first challenge is that there is no agreement on media selection criteria for online game advertising. The second challenge relates to the complexity of choosing advertising media. Purpose of the article: Given the multidimensionality and uncertainty in evaluating and selecting advertising media, especially in the case of online games, the need to provide a systematic framework for evaluating and selecting media is critical. Methods: The present study aims to provide a systematic framework based on multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) methods to evaluate and select the appropriate media for online game advertising. For this purpose, first, by reviewing the literature, a relatively comprehensive list of media selection criteria for online game advertising was extracted and then provided to experts in online game marketing and advertising in the fuzzy Delphi questionnaire. Then, based on their opinions, a localized decision model was obtained. Also, the Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method helped to determine the criteria? importance. In the next step, a preliminary list of online game advertising media was prepared and evaluated by experts based on the criteria obtained in the previous step. Finally, the media was ranked using the Additive Ratio ASsessment (ARAS) method. Findings & value added: Awareness of the criteria affecting the selection of online game advertising media and having a systematic framework for applying these criteria in advertising media selection decisions play a vital role in practical decisions. This research addresses one of the main gaps in the field of study by proposing a quantitative methodology for integrating information based on the knowledge of experts in the decision-making processes select advertising media for online games. Most traditional media selection processes are based solely on experience and estimation, and in practice, they are unable to systematically prioritize the alternatives due to the multiplicity of media available and the complexity of the decision-making process Interval-valued triangular fuzzy numbers (IVTFNs) can address the shortcomings of previous research while considering the uncertainties in this decision-making process. The findings of this framework can be good support for e-commerce managers and online game advertising practitioners.

Human trafficking is one of the most serious forms of organized crime, affecting millions of people worldwide and causing severe physical, psychological, and social harm. Bangladesh, due to its socio-economic conditions and geographical position, remains highly vulnerable as a source, transit, and destination country for trafficking. With the rapid advancement of digital technology, new forms of exploitation have emerged, particularly through online platforms such as online gaming. This study explores the emerging nexus between online gaming and human trafficking in Bangladesh. It examines how traffickers exploit the anonymity and interactive nature of gaming platforms to identify and manipulate potential victims, especially young people. The research adopts a qualitative and doctrinal methodology, relying on primary legal sources and secondary materials, including academic literature and institutional reports. The findings reveal that limited digital literacy, socio-economic disparities, and lack of awareness significantly increase vulnerability to trafficking through online gaming. Furthermore, the study identifies gaps in existing legal frameworks, which are primarily designed to address traditional forms of trafficking and do not adequately cover digital dimensions. The study concludes by emphasizing the need for stronger legal regulations, enhanced digital literacy, and coordinated institutional responses to address this emerging threat. It highlights the importance of developing a comprehensive approach to ensure safer digital environments and protect vulnerable populations from exploitation.