IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2406.02525.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Acquisition on Product Quality in the Console Gaming Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Shivam Somani

Abstract

The console gaming industry, a dominant force in the global entertainment sector, has witnessed a wave of consolidation in recent years, epitomized by Microsoft's high-profile acquisitions of Activision Blizzard and Zenimax. This study investigates the repercussions of such mergers on consumer welfare and innovation within the gaming landscape, focusing on product quality as a key metric. Through a comprehensive analysis employing a difference-in-difference model, the research evaluates the effects of acquisition on game review ratings, drawing from a dataset comprising over 16,000 console games released between 2000 and 2023. The research addresses key assumptions underlying the difference-in-difference methodology, including parallel trends and spillover effects, to ensure the robustness of the findings. The DID results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact of acquisition on game review ratings, when controlling for genre and release year. The study contributes to the literature by offering empirical evidence on the direct consequences of industry consolidation on consumer welfare and competition dynamics within the gaming sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Shivam Somani, 2024. "The Impact of Acquisition on Product Quality in the Console Gaming Industry," Papers 2406.02525, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2406.02525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.02525
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirill Borusyak & Xavier Jaravel & Jann Spiess, 2021. "Revisiting Event Study Designs: Robust and Efficient Estimation," Papers 2108.12419, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    2. Erdős, Katalin & Baczur, Roland & Kehl, Dániel & Farkas, Richárd, 2022. "When post-merger price effect becomes smoothed over time: A case of a gasoline market merger," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    3. Timothy Derdenger, 2014. "Technological tying and the intensity of price competition: An empirical analysis of the video game industry," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 127-165, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kirill Borusyak & Peter Hull & Xavier Jaravel, 2023. "Design-Based Identification with Formula Instruments: A Review," NBER Working Papers 31393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jack (Peiyao) Ma & Andrea Mantovani & Carlo Reggiani & Annette Broocks & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2024. "The Price Effects of Prohibiting Price Parity Clauses: Evidence from International Hotel Groups," Economics Series Working Papers 1043, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    3. Melanie Gräser, 2023. "Industrial versus artisanal mining: The effects on local employment in Liberia," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp341, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    4. Redpath, Connor, 2022. "Spousal Visa Policy and Mixed-Citizenship Couples: Evidence from the End of the Defense Of Marriage Act," SocArXiv mzuwe, Center for Open Science.
    5. Calderón, Mariana & Cortés, Josué & Pérez Pérez, Jorge & Salcedo, Alejandrina, 2023. "Disentangling the Effects of Large Minimum Wage and VAT Changes on Prices: Evidence from Mexico," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    6. Cannon Cloud & Simon He{ss} & Johannes Kasinger, 2022. "Do shared e-scooter services cause traffic accidents? Evidence from six European countries," Papers 2209.06870, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    7. Brewer, Mike & Cattan, Sarah & Crawford, Claire & Rabe, Birgitta, 2022. "Does more free childcare help parents work more?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. Cooper, Daniel & Garga, Vaishali & Luengo-Prado, María José & Tang, Jenny, 2023. "The mitigating effect of masks on the spread of Covid-19," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    9. Mingyu Joo & Dinesh K. Gauri & Kenneth C. Wilbur, 2020. "Temporal Distance and Price Responsiveness: Empirical Investigation of the Cruise Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5362-5388, November.
    10. Shibashish Mukherjee & Sorin M.S. Krammer, 2024. "When the going gets tough : Board gender diversity in the wake of a major crisis," Post-Print hal-04522722, HAL.
    11. Laia Navarro-Sola, 2021. "Secondary Schools with Televised Lessons: The Labor Market Returns of the Mexican Telesecundaria," Working Papers 2021-053, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    12. Yufeng Huang, 2022. "Tied Goods and Consumer Switching Costs," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 93-114, January.
    13. Ferrando, Annalisa & McAdam, Peter & Petroulakis, Filippos & Vives, Xavier, 2021. "Product market structure and monetary policy: evidence from the Euro Area," Working Paper Series 2632, European Central Bank.
    14. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2021. "Two-Way Fixed Effects and Differences-in-Differences with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects: A Survey," Papers 2112.04565, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    15. Lichter, Andreas & Löffler, Max & Isphording, Ingo E. & Nguyen, Thu-Van & Poege, Felix & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2021. "Profit Taxation, R&D Spending, and Innovation," IZA Discussion Papers 14830, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Xiao Liu & Timothy Derdenger & Baohong Sun, 2018. "An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Purchase Behavior of Base Products and Add-ons Given Compatibility Constraints," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 569-591, August.
    17. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Marco Ovidi, 2023. "When it hurts the most: timing of parental job loss and a child’s education," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-12, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    18. Sha, Wenbiao, 2023. "The political impacts of land expropriation in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    19. Miguel Acosta & Andreas I. Mueller & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2023. "Macroeconomic Effects of UI Extensions at Short and Long Durations," NBER Working Papers 31784, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Dami'an Vergara, 2022. "Minimum Wages and Optimal Redistribution," Papers 2202.00839, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2406.02525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.