Digital platforms play an increasingly transformative role in the global ecosystem of interactive media and games. Recently, we studied one type of platform boundary resource, namely application programming interfaces (APIs). We examined more than 15,000 APIs and mashups, mapping the global locations where APIs are created. Our results show the global distribution of APIs, and their concentration in various parts of the world. In this talk, I will dig deeper into the gaming API ecosystem to share insights about the development of interactive games. On the side, I will discuss the process and tools we used in our data-driven methodology.

1. 1
Jukka Huhtamäki
@jnkka // fi.linkedin.com/in/jukkahuhtamaki
Tampere University of Technology
Interactive Media
and Games
Seminar
mediaX at Stanford

2. About this presentation
• This presentation is a revised version of a
recent presentation at HICSS 2017:
Huhtamäki, J., Basole, R., Still, K., Russell, M., & Seppänen,
M. (2017). Visualizing the Geography of Platform Boundary
Resources: The Case of the Global API Ecosystem.
Available:
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/41804
15/01/17 2

3. Introduction

4. What is an API?
4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbVtliFXOOY

5. What is a mashup?
johnnycashhasbeeneverywhere.com
5

6. Why APIs?
• APIs are replacing “traditional” interfirm
relationships
• APIs are lightweight boundary resources that
allow for complementors to create value for
the focal companies
• APIs are artifacts of both lightweight software
development and business strategy
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7. 15/01/17 7

8. API ecosystem
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9. 15/01/17 9Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0

10. 15/01/17 10Code example: Rob M. (2016)
Tesla Model S JSON API:
http://docs.timdorr.apiary.io/#

11. Sector View: Games and APIS

12. 12
sectoranalysis.net

13. 13
sectoranalysis.net

14. API Ecosystem Global View

15. 15/01/17 15
(Evans and Basole, 2016;
Basole, 2016)

16. 15/01/17 16
(Evans and Basole, 2016;
Basole, 2016)

17. We asked
• What is the structure of global API ecosystem
for games?
• Where are APIs located geographically*?
• Is the geographical location of a company
less important in the digital age?
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18. Method
• Data collection using crawling and scraping
• Data-driven visual network analytics
• Semi-automated data curation process
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20. Data curation
• 13,366 APIs and 6,271 mashups from
ProgrammableWeb
• Using URIs as identifiers, company location
lookup using Crunchbase
• Mapping the 6,218 APIs with location data to
city-level entrepreneurial regions and global
regions
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21. API Co-use
• Cf. co-citation analysis
Three resulting connections (here
regions):
Twitter - Twitter Search
Twitter - Google App Engine
Twitter Search - Google App Engine

22. Geographical global view
1. Where are the APIs available globally?
2. How are APIs co-used between regions?

23. H
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24. 15/01/17 24
Regions connected on
basis of API co-use

25. 15/01/17 25
Regions connected on
basis of API co-use

26. …
Main
category

27. …
All
categories

29. Deep dive to games and
APIs

30. APIs in
Games
category:
two step
egocentric
network
30Interactive: http://bit.ly/gameapivis2017

31. 31
APIs and
mashups

32. Case Minecraft

33. Case Minecraft

34. Minecraft //
Value Co-creation
(Ramaswamy, 2009; Vargo and Lusch, 2004)

36. Value
co-creation:
Augmented
virtual
reality and
bots
https://github.com/PrismarineJS/mineflayer

37. Minecraft //
Value Co-destruction
• Search for “Minecraft spambot”
(Plé and Chumpitaz Cáceres, 2010; Echeverri and
Skalen, 2011; Vartiainen and Tuunanen, 2016)
37

38. Sidenote: Games and Metagames
Cf. Boluk & LeMieux (2016):
“From speedrunning and ROM hacking to virtual
economies and international e-sports, metagaming has
become a dominant form of play, a game design
paradigm, and a way of life not only occurring around
videogames, but all forms of digital technology.”
38

39. Takeaways
• API ecosystem is highly concentrated to a
few regions
• API ecosystem is particularly flexible for
actors to offer and consume services
• API co-use is not API usage
• Public APIs vs. Private APIs