Books
One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games
— October 6, 2020

By Joost van Dreunen
By Joost van Dreunen
One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games offers a pioneering empirical analysis of innovation and strategy in the video game industry to explain how it has evolved from a fringe activity to become a mainstream form of entertainment. Professor Joost van Dreunen, a widely recognized industry expert with over twenty years of experience, analyzes how game makers, publishers and platform holders have tackled strategic challenges to make the video game industry what it is today.
Using more than three decades of rigorously compiled industry data, he demonstrates that video game companies flourish when they bring the same level of creativity to business strategy that they bring to game design. Filled with case studies of companies such as Activision Blizzard, Apple, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nexon, Sony, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent and Valve, this book forces us to rethink common misconceptions around the emergence of digital and mobile gaming. One Up is required reading for investors, creatives, managers and anyone looking to learn about the major drivers of change and growth in contemporary entertainment.