Does technological performance gap drive product performance?: An explorative study of personal computer gaming

Abstract

In this paper we firstly develop a means to measure the technological performance disparity between evolving technological sub-systems of the PC (personal computer) system and subsequently employ this measure in the study of the GPU (graphics processing unit) and PC game sub-systems' evolutions. Secondly, the paper explores the connection between the observed temporal behavior of technological performance gap and the product performance of PC games, as measured by game ratings. Our findings suggest that the level of technological performance of the PC game sub-system trails that of the GPU sub-system within the analyzed timeframe with oscillating technological disparity. In addition, our exploratory study of the evolution of technological performance and its relationship with product performance does not highlight a noteworthy connection, implying that game developers are not assured of high performance of their products despite being first to develop products of higher technological performance.