The business of playing games: players as developers and entrepreneurs.

This paper questions how video game players evolve to become video game developers and entrepreneurs. It also questions how this can best be documented so as to inform the video game industry which is recognised as a key entity in the European economic, education and employment future. Market growth in respect of video game sales, innovation, and research and development is introduced in our opening overview of the industry. This is followed by an analysis of the characteristics of the players and their motivation with related evaluation of their management of real versus virtual aspects of the gameplay. The conclusions reflect upon video game development as a vocation and the potential advantages that gamers have over their counterparts in the business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]