Working Papers

F-series

Date:

Number:CARF-F-026

How does Ownership Structure Affect the Timing of New Product Introductions? Evidence from the U.S. Video Game Market

Author:Ohashi, Hiroshi

Abstract

This paper investigates the release date scheduling of U.S. video games in the 1994 – 2001 period. Particular attention is paid to how the game ownership structure affects the release timing of video games. A typical feature of the video game diffusion pattern makes release timing crucial to the success of a new game. The evidence suggests that where multiple games are owned by the same publisher, they are released further apart in time than are multiple games owned by multiple different publishers. Furthermore, where a single publisher of multiple games is a platform provider, the games are launched further apart in time than if the publisher is a non-platform provider. The paper associates these findings with industry practice evolved in the modern video game market.