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André Lhuillier, CSS PhD student. André’s talk entitled “Why Little Samson Didn’t Defeat The Hedgehog: A Story Of Social Influence And The Relevance Of Distribution For Successful Information Goods"

Abstract: In 1992 during one of the fiercest battles of the so called ‘console wars’, a modest game was released in the mist of the industry frenzy. Although ‘Little Samson’ is recognized by those who know it as a great game, it remains unknown for most of the consumers today. On the other side of the battlefield, Sega’s thriving Hedgehog was convincing everyone that they have seized their main competitor ‘Mario Kart’. Despite this momentary victory in consumer’s memory and affection, the real winner was not in the center of the industry’s attention. Having less media presence, the sequel of Super Mario Land for the Game Boy was the most purchased game with almost 200% units of what ‘Sonic 2’ sold. This kind of unpredictable and divergent behavior is a unique characteristic of information goods markets. In this presentation I survey the last 30 years of the video game sector and show its particular composition and evolution. Following De Vany’s approach to Hollywood movie industry I dwell into an analysis of this industry with special emphasis in consumer behavior. Re-visiting De Vany’s proposal I make a simple ABM approach to model and show how placement or distribution properties may induce long tail distributions. Following the relevance of information diffusion and the development of hype in this industry another model is presented. In this case the relevance of a consumer social system and its dynamics. After an analysis of the industry history, consumer’s social influence, sales and distribution/access is reviewed; I present several findings and propose a model to understand them. A final discussion will be opened with the presentation of data on Valve Company digital platform Steam.

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