New business model: intentional and unintentional degree one and degree two consumer coopetition in a branch of the Finnish game industry

This study searches for the underlying specific features of contemporary digital products using Finnish game industry as the case study example. One interesting outcome is the existence of various forms of coopetition, or simultaneous competition and cooperation relationships. In addition to relationships among producers, coopetition occurs among consumers and between consumers and producers. This study finds that the active role of consumer as co-producer or prosumer and consumer coopetition are parts of the business model in the branch of game industry. Companies, especially in game industry, are jointly arranging events for the employed and unemployed game developers and professional consumers to meet each other and co-innovate future product ideas. These events contain consumer coopetition, which is here called 'degree two consumer coopetition'. This study expresses two kinds of consumer coopetition: the type of coopetition focused on co-production at the end of the product life cycle, that is, the consumer coopetition type identified by Walley (2007), and the type of coopetition noticed in this study, which focuses on co-innovation and is located at the beginning of the product life cycle. The first type is called degree one consumer coopetition and the second type is degree two consumer coopetition.