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2.3. Small money, big impact? – Microtransactions in Gaming

Episodencover
Episodencover

The success of microtransactions in gaming began back in the 1970s with arcade video games: In public arcades, games such as Donkey Kong or Pacman could be started on machines by inserting a coin. Today, so-called free-to-play games – which dominate the market – initially offered free of charge are financed with microtransactions that can be used to buy in-game progress, items or characters.


This is where parts of the games industry have developed particularly sophisticated strategies: Using the smallest payments, marginal in themselves, to reduce the threshold for a transaction to a minimum. And anyone who has made a purchase once will do so again – that’s how intelligent or manipulative the data-driven algorithms are in their search for a small pool of financially strong players, often minors, who then become increasingly addicted to the game and are referred to in technical jargon as “whales” that the game makers want to “catch”. In addition, microtransactions have also changed game design: Those who no longer want to use the game to advertise its purchase, but constantly monetize within a game, will design the game in such a way that a transaction seems to make sense as often as possible. A manipulation mechanism?

Digitalgelddickicht Season Small Money – Episode 3 (German only) | 2 May 2025

Guests

Lies van Roessel is a media scientist specializing in game studies and media industry studies. Her doctoral thesis examined the development processes and norms of developers of free-to-play games.

Jörg Luibl worked as editor-in-chief for the gaming magazine 4 Players for 21 years. He now runs his own gaming magazine and podcast, Spielvertiefung.

Burak Tergek, lawyer, works at the “Verbraucherzentrale” of North Rhine-Westphalia and advises on complaints related to gaming, among other things.

Further Information


The latest publications from the German Games Industry Association “Game” can be found here. You can also read and watch the critical reporting from Der Standard, Vice, and Jan Böhmermann’s ZDF Magazin Royale. The article from the technology blog Every on the topic of “whales” can be found here.

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2.2. Small money, big impact? – Digital Tipping

Episodencover Staffel 2
Episodencover Staffel 2

Tipping is often treated as casually as it is paid. What exactly tipping is cannot even be defined by a precise legal term, but is more akin to a “moral agreement”, as historian Winfried Speitkamp describes it, whose small volume Der Rest ist für Sie! is one of the very few German academic publications on the history of tipping. However, tipping is anything but a trivial matter: 10 percent on every “tipable” transaction, in a restaurant or in a cab, at least in Germany; in the USA, as is well known, it is even twice as common, around 20 percent. In economic terms, this adds up to astonishing sums – more than 2 billion euros per year in German restaurants alone – which are hardly regulated in Germany and, above all, do not have to be taxed.

In the digital context, the nature of the incidental, almost hidden micropayment has shifted. Will digital technologies give momentum to tipping or its decline? We explore this question in the second episode of our series on micropayments.

Digitalgelddickicht Season Small Money – Episode 2 (German only) | 28. Februar 2025

Guests

Sascha Hoffmann is Professor of Business Administration and Online Management at Hochschule Fresenius. One of his research focuses on digital product management. In 2021, he published an empirical study in which he reveals the correlation between smaller gifts in restaurants and larger counter-gifts (i.e. tipping).

Katrin Lindow-Schröder is a fundraising officer at the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau. She has helped to introduce digital payment options in the regional church community.

Further Information


The article on Uber’s “no-tip policy” quoted in the podcast can be read here. The studies by the two marketing researchers Hansen/Warren can be read here, as can the study by Jägermeister Mast. The “Swiss discussion” about tipping can be read in more detail in this NZZ article.

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2.1. Small money, big impact? – Micropayments in journalism

Cover Digitalgelddickicht Staffel 2 Folge 1
Cover Digitalgelddickicht Staffel 2 Folge 1

Journalism has changed fundamentally with digitalization. In part in its content, in its formats, and also and perhaps especially in its infrastructure and the way in which it is financed. Traditional subscription models of daily or weekly newspapers, for example, have fallen behind, and the secure pillar of income from advertising has also crumbled. Although digital equivalents have emerged, they are far from being able to fully replace the old ones. Completely different business models are needed – and these have developed and continue to develop.

In this episode, we will ask: What role do small digital participation models play in journalism? Do small payments, does the idea of a “mini-payment” help to finance it into a new phase of serious journalistic work? Or are the effects of digitalization leading traditional and even less traditional media into precariousness, and are the payment models based on small payments changing them for the worse, towards pure entertainment? And what does “micropayment” actually mean in journalism – one-off payments, subscriptions or individual purchases?

Season Small Money – Episode 2 | February 28, 2025

Guests

Ann-Kathrin Liedtke is head of online payment strategies and memberships at taz, where she has worked since 2016. Before that, she was responsible for the taz blogs and program editor at taz lab.


Sebastian Esser is Managing Director of the Steady platform. He has also been co-chairman of the cooperative and editor of the magazine Krautreporter since 2014.

André Peschke co-founded “The Pod” with Jochen Gebauer, one of the most successful gaming podcasts in Germany, after being video editor-in-chief at Gamestar.

Further Information:

The Colombia Journalism Review article quoted in the podcast can be read here. A more in-depth interview with media researcher Christian-Mathias Wellbrock can be found here.

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Digital Streetwork: Social Work in Digital Space

Cover Digitalgespräch Episode 61 mit Christina Dinar
Cover Digitalgespräch Episode 61 mit Christina Dinar

Chat forums, social media, online communities – the Internet offers many addresses and reference points that can be described as “digital spaces”. There you can meet like-minded people, get information, pursue your interests – or even identify and contact specific groups of people in a very targeted way. This is what social work does. Led by pioneers of “digital street work,” it has discovered the Internet as a means of reaching hard-to-reach or vulnerable target groups. And although small, specialized networks in particular value and support social workers as a complement and relief for (often volunteer) content moderators, outreach digital communication is not yet widely established in social work. Specific skills that “digital” social workers need to be credible and trustworthy in online communities are hardly part of their training. Political support and public demand are slow to emerge. However, the interests and business practices of large, commercial platforms are not necessarily compatible with the conditions for serious social work based on professional standards.

Christina Dinar is a social worker and cultural studies graduate. In her practical work and as a researcher and lecturer at the Catholic University of Applied Social Sciences in Berlin, she has established a focus on communities in digital spaces in social work. The expert and pioneer of “digital streetwork” explains in this episode of Digitalgespräch what professional online social work does and under what conditions it succeeds, how far the professionalization of digital social work online is today, and what skills digital streetworkers need. She describes different concepts and approaches of this form of social work and the position of digital streetwork in relation to content moderators and platform operators. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Dinar discusses who bears responsibility for socially acceptable, safe digital spaces, the importance of global platforms as infrastructure for social work today – and whether the funding logic for social projects that originated in the analog era applies to the digital world.

Episode 61 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Christina Dinar of Katholische Hochschule für Sozialwesen Berlin, 18 February 2025
Further informationen:

Link to Christina Dinar’s profile on the website of Katholische Hochschule für Sozialwesen Berlin: https://www.khsb-berlin.de/de/profile-personal/136265

Link to information on the “Digital Streetwork” approach of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation: https://www.amadeu-antonio-stiftung.de/good-gaming-well-played-democracy/digital-streetwork/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Much more than Technology: Understanding Search Engines

Cover Digitalgespräch Folge 60 mit Dirk Lewandowski
Cover Digitalgespräch Folge 60 mit Dirk Lewandowski

We take the use of search engines so much for granted in our daily digital lives that we rarely question their design, how they work, and most importantly, the results of our searches. In the early days of the WWW, successful Internet searches were a challenge for experts. Today, however, anyone can get useful hits from a search engine in a matter of seconds. What is behind this: a gigantic effort. Considering the amount of online content that search engines have to systematically collect and interpret for relevance, it is easy to see why there are only a few search engines – and why the effort is worthwhile for them, even though the external service, i.e. the search, appears to be free for users. To understand how search engines work and why the undisputed market leader, Google, is so successful, it is important to look beyond the technical systems to the business models. It is well known that users are not customers in these models, but rather a means to an end. And the taken-for-granted nature of Internet search easily obscures the cultural and political dimensions of the “search engine” complex. What are the consequences of the nature of the search engine market for the quality of search results and the plurality of perspectives on content on the Internet, which is increasingly becoming a reflection of society itself?

Dirk Lewandowski is Professor of Information Research & Information Retrieval at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and a recognized expert on search engines and their function in the digital society. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the scientist explains how search engines are technically structured, what significance they have for our use of the Internet, and how the business models of their providers interact with the interests of users and producers of Web content. He explains how Google’s market dominance came about, why it is detrimental to good Internet search, and what options are realistic for reviving real competition among search engines. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Lewandowski discusses how the way we all use the Internet affects the design and function of today’s search engines, how generative language models come into play, whether we need a European infrastructure for search engines – and whether we should (re)learn how to search for web content.

Episode 60 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Dirk Lewandowski of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, 28 January 2025
Further informationen:

Link to Dirk Lewandowski’s profile at HAW Hamburg: https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/university/employees/detail/person/person/show/dirk-lewandowski/

Link to Dirk Lewandowski’s book “Understanding Search Engines”: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-22789-9

Link to the Open Search Foundation website: https://opensearchfoundation.org/en/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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How Occupations are changing due to Digitality

Digitalgespräch Folge 59 mit Britta Matthes
Digitalgespräch Folge 59 mit Britta Matthes

The way we work is changing in the digital age and through digitality. New tasks and professions are emerging, others are changing radically or disappearing, both simple and complex tasks can be or are being transferred to machines. We are all affected, whether we are reluctant to embrace new technological opportunities or curious to integrate them into our working lives – assuming we have a choice. Whether companies value the needs and skills of the people who work for them and involve them in change processes, or whether they view anonymous employees as labourers who must follow instructions, not only makes a big difference to the acceptance of change in the workplace, but also determines how digital working environments are shaped. And in our society, where younger generations are few in number and career starters generally have many options, the question of how we want to work and where our strengths lie takes on new significance.

Dr Britta Matthes, a sociologist and biologist, is head of the department “Occupations in the Transformation” at the Institute for Employment Research at the Federal Employment Agency. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert explains the mechanisms at work in the transformation of job profiles and labour market structures, and how the digital transformation of the world of work can be researched. She explains the new conditions and requirements that will shape our working lives in the future, how different professional fields are integrating digitality into their processes, whose expertise is important, what hurdles stand in the way and what room for manoeuvre there is. Together with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Matthes discusses the special features of the German labour market in the implementation of digitalisation, what constitutes the core of a profession in the face of constant change, how we as individuals can shape our professional lives – and whether the ideal of working in “one’s” profession all of one’s life is still appropriate.

Episode 59 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Britta Matthes of the Institute for Employment Research at the Federal Employment Agency, 26 November 2024
Further informationen:

To the Job Futuromat of the Institute for Employment Research: https://job-futuromat.iab.de/en/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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‘Digitalchecking’ Laws and what follows: Getting Administration ready for Digitisation

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Cover

The digitalisation of government and administration will continue at a rapid pace – and high demands are being placed on digital solutions to fulfil public tasks. Digital government is not an end in itself, but should make processes more efficient, clearer and more accessible. In addition to a multitude of specific, demand-driven software solutions based on the analogue status quo, strategies are needed to establish digitality as the new default in the long term. This also means developing methods to ensure that regulations, laws and processes are compatible with the needs of the digital society and the requirements of the digital state from the outset. One organisation that will help to tackle this major task is the German government’s DigitalService GmbH, which was established in 2020.

IT manager Stephanie Kaiser is chief product officer at DigitalService, the German government’s central digitisation office. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert in software development and IT projects describes the tasks of this unusual department, how it works and what innovations are created in the process. She explains what it means to make rules or processes ready for the digital age, who is involved and how citizens and civil servants benefit. Together with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Kaiser discusses how working methods from the private sector can be applied in the public sector, which mediation work is helpful in this process – and how it is possible to provide high-quality digital solutions for the interfaces between the state and citizens on a long-term and large-scale basis.

Episode 58 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Stephanie Kaiser of DigitalService GmbH, 5 November 2024
Further informationen:

The blog post mentioned in the interview with a practical example of a “Digitalcheck” on electricity tax law: https://digitalservice.bund.de/en/blog/current-example-of-digital-ready-legislation-the-german-electricity-duty-act

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Dynamic Digital Strategies for the European Broadcaster ARTE

The ARTE television channel is a project that aims to promote understanding and cultural exchange between the countries of Europe. The channel, and in particular its media library, is renowned for its carefully curated programme of art, entertainment, information and education. Not only the so-called linear television, i.e. the classic programme broadcast according to a fixed schedule, but also the presentation of content in the digital world is carefully put together by experts to meet the needs of a European audience. ARTE has fans who specifically seek out and appreciate its carefully prepared programming, but just like all public broadcasters, the Franco-German channel faces challenges: the highly dynamic nature of digitality requires clever strategies and a willingness to take different paths to reach target audiences. Technological innovations offer great opportunities – as long as they can be used in line with the public mandate and the broadcaster’s own self-image.

Kemal Görgülü is Chief Technology Officer at the ARTE GEIE headquarters in Strasbourg, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of digital strategies, in particular the use of artificial intelligence. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert in technological innovation in the field of editorial work describes the strategies ARTE is pursuing, the considerations and values that are decisive in this regard, and what it means that the broadcaster arte sees itself as an explicitly European ‘content boutique’. It shows where there is great potential for the use of AI systems – both visible to the audience and behind the scenes – and where they are already being used as a matter of course. Together with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Görgülü discusses how public broadcasters can respond to new media habits in the interest of the general public, which cooperation partners are available for this task, where the limits lie in terms of what individual broadcasters and media organisations can achieve – and where decision-makers and politicians should also rethink in the face of digital realities.

Episode 57 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Kemal Görgülü of ARTE GEIE, 15 October 2024
Further informationen:

Link to the ARTE website: https://www.arte.tv/en/

Link to the Beyond Platforms Initiative website: https://beyond-platforms.org/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Tokenisation of Carbon Credits: Blockchain for Climate Action?

Cover des Digitalgesprächs Nr. 56
Cover des Digitalgesprächs Nr. 56

Major efforts are needed to protect the climate, both to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. And even if the urgency of action is recognised in principle, targeted guidelines and incentives are needed to motivate companies to participate. One instrument that has been used for a number of years is CO2 certificates. This new construct has created a complex field of obligations and rules, voluntary commitments and international cooperation. Both public and private actors are involved. Not only is it difficult to keep track of, but the possibility of issuing, buying and selling certificates has created its own markets in which these certificates almost fulfil the function of securities. Whether they should be treated as such in the eyes of the law – i.e. regulated – has not yet been conclusively clarified.

One idea to make carbon trading easier and more trustworthy would be to use a blockchain. This step is possible, perhaps even obvious – in any case, it would make carbon trading cheap, fast and, presumably, transparent. The first examples of ‘tokenised carbon credits’ already exist. This new development is of interest not only to computer scientists, economists and companies, but also to the world of Law. What decisions are important here and why are international experts looking with interest at the European legal area and its efforts to regulate markets for crypto assets?

Dominik Skauradszun is a professor of civil law, civil procedure and corporate law at the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda and a judge at the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main. He also researches and teaches at the University of Bielefeld and Nottingham Trent University, and advises on procedures and institutions at national and EU level. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert on the legal aspects of tokenisation explains what CO2 certificates are, what the differences are, what the markets for trading these certificates look like and which participants fulfil important functions. He will explain why blockchain is a suitable technical environment for this and what the consequences of this digitalisation step will be. Skauradszun discusses with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring which problems can be solved, which will remain, whether the high level of transparency in the transactions is an advantage or a disadvantage from a corporate perspective – and why it is necessary for lawyers to research the tokenisation of CO2 certificates.

Episode 56 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Dominik Skauradszun of Hochschule Fulda
Further informationen:

Link to Dominik Skauradszun’s profile on the Fulda University of Applied Sciences website: https://www.hs-fulda.de/wirtschaft/ueber-uns/professuren/details/person/prof-dr-dominik-skauradszun-llm-2-483/contactBox

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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IT Giants and Software Monopolies: The Universities’ Struggle for Digital Sovereignty

Cover des Digitalgesprächs Folge 55
Cover des Digitalgesprächs Folge 55

The dependency of companies and administrations on non-European technology providers has become very apparent in recent years. Large companies, which provide virtually indispensable software and hardware for everyday academic life with little or no competition, also appear to be deliberately exploiting their position vis-à-vis universities: They raise prices, impose complicated licensing models, force new product types into existing systems – and stabilise their presence in the everyday lives of users, almost automatically training students to become permanent customers of Google, Microsoft, Adobe & Co. Finding a way out of this dilemma is difficult because universities have little bargaining power. Their mission is ‘research and teaching’, and there is no provision for additional investment in expensive change processes. As a result, more and more of their limited budgets are being used to provide much-needed technology. Money for IT is starting to be scarce elsewhere, and the privacy standards and terms of use under which the IT giants offer their products are questionable in many places – a danger to free research and teaching. There are alternatives, such as open source solutions or European products that could be used on more favourable terms, but switching all staff and systems to previously untested innovations would be complex, almost impossible to implement in day-to-day operations, and not without risk for individual institutions. Does joining forces help? Do politicians need to act – in a different way? And do all those involved understand what is at stake?

Ramin Yahyapour is Professor of E-Science and Practical Computer Science at the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen and Director of the Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen, which serves the university and the Max Planck Society as a computing centre and IT competence centre. A renowned expert in high-performance computing, cloud applications and data management, he has been an advocate of digital sovereignty for many years. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, Yahyapour describes the current situation of universities as customers of technology providers, categorises developments and explains the importance of digital sovereignty for universities. He also outlines the measures that can be taken to break the dependency and the obstacles that stand in the way. Together with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Yahyapour discusses who needs to take action and which strategies could gradually create some room for manoeuvre as awareness of the problem grows and courageous steps are taken.

Episode 55 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Ramin Yahyapour of Georg-August Universität Göttingen and Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen, 3 September 2024
Further informationen:

To the profile of Ramin Yahyapour on the website of the University of Göttingen: https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/635175.html

To the website of the Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen (GWDG): https://gwdg.de/

To the brochure ‘Sicherstellung der digitalen Souveränität und Bildungsgerechtigkeit. Empfehlungen zur Ausgestaltung von Rahmenbedingungen für die Nutzung von Cloud-basierten Angeboten im Bildungsbereich’ by ZKI: https://www.zki.de/fileadmin/user_upload/ZKI-Digitale_Souveraenitaet-2022-V2.pdf

all episodes of Digitalgespräch

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.