The new book “New Perspectives on the Social Aspects of Digital Gaming: Multiplayer 2” has been published by Routledge and is a sequel of the first volume named “Multiplayer.” It explorers several areas related to digital and social gaming in detail.

Professor André Marchand is one of the contributing authors of this book and provide new marketing insights about multiplayer video games. His data analyses indicate different impacts of local and online multiplayer features on video games demand. Furthermore, he found an interaction effect of online multiplayer features with the age of a console generation.

Is a focus on online multiplayer always beneficial?

The analyses have several implications for the video games industry. For example, it might have been suboptimal for the demand of the Star Wars Battlefront 1 game that it focused on online multiplayer and did not feature a single player story mode, because of the relative low installed base of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 at the time of its release (November 2015). For the upcoming sequel (Star Wars Battlefront 2), which will be shown at the Gamescom trade fair in Cologne next week, Electronic Arts announced a singleplayer story mode for this game. Professor André Marchand predicts that the sales of the sequel will surpass the sales of the predecessor by a factor of more than 1.5.

André Marchand at the Gamescom in Cologne

On August 22, Professor Marchand will discuss multiplayer and video games marketing issues with industry experts at the Gamescom Cologne, the leading European trade fair for digital gaming.

More about the book:

The book is now available directly from the publisher and other book retailers.
 “As with the previous volume, this book brings together an interesting and enlightening sampler of the latest original research on social aspects of digital games from talented new scholars and established leaders in the field. An excellent survey on where research on digital games is going, and where it should go.” – James D. Ivory, Virginia Tech, USA.