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Journal articles on the topic 'Games monetization'
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Johnson, Mark R., and Tom Brock. "The ‘gambling turn’ in digital game monetization." Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2020): 145–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jgvw_00011_1.
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This article examines how ‘gambling’ secured a central economic and cultural position in the development of modern digital games. We first trace how developers have monetized ‘games’ and ‘play’, from slot machines to PC, console and mobile platforms, before considering the recent controversy over ‘loot boxes’ as an emblematic case study of the ongoing gamblification of digital play. We argue that (1) the rising costs of development and marketing for ‘blockbuster’ games, (2) an overcrowded marketplace and (3) significant shifts in the corporate culture of the games industry are creating cultural conditions which legitimize gambling as a form of digital game production and consumption. This is evidenced in developers’ capacity to innovate around legal challenges and player demand for further customization and rewards. What emerges is a question about the future direction of game development and the impact of a logic of money, rather than play, which now underwrites it.
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Roy, Nandita. "Applying Kant’s Ethics to Video Game Business Models." Business and Professional Ethics Journal 40, no. 1 (2021): 109–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/bpej202115106.
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This article expands on existing models of analyzing business ethics of monetization in video games using the concept of categorical imperatives, as posited by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. A model is advanced to analyze and evaluate the business logics of video game monetization using a Kantian framework, which falls in the deontological category of normative ethics. Using two categorical imperatives, existing models of game monetization are divided into ethical or unethical, and presented using the case example of Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017). This analysis aims to provide video game developers and businesses with ethical guidelines for game monetization which may also be profitable for them in the long term. Within the framework of video game monetization, a deontological analysis is relevant due to the fact that the game developer is engaged in a continuous role of making the game more playable/payable. This article applies Kantian business ethics to the context of a new sector, that of video game businesses, and thereby presents a broader ethical perspective to video game developers, which will help them monetize games in an ethical manner which is also profitable in the long run.
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Fang, Bin, Zhiqiang (Eric) Zheng, Qiang Ye, and Paulo B. Goes. "Social Influence and Monetization of Freemium Social Games." Journal of Management Information Systems 36, no. 3 (July 3, 2019): 730–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2019.1628878.
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Beltagui, Ahmad, Thomas Schmidt, Marina Candi, and Deborah Lynn Roberts. "Overcoming the monetization challenge in freemium online games." Industrial Management & Data Systems 119, no. 6 (July 8, 2019): 1339–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/imds-08-2018-0350.
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Purpose Online games based on a freemium business model face the monetization challenge. The purpose of this paper is to examine how players’ achievement orientation, social orientation and sense of community contribute to willingness to pay (WtP). Design/methodology/approach A multi-method study of an online game community is used. Interviews and participant observation are used to develop an understanding of social and achievement orientations followed by the development of hypotheses that are tested using survey data. Findings The findings indicate that a sense of community is positively related to WtP, whereas satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service provider is not. The authors examine the moderating role of players’ achievement orientation and social orientation and find that while a stronger connection to the community may encourage achievement-oriented players to pay, the opposite is indicated for socially oriented players. Practical implications Decision makers need to understand that not all players are potential payers; while socially oriented users can help to maintain and grow the community, achievement-oriented players are more likely to pay for the value they extract from the community. Originality/value While communities are held together by people with common interests, which intuitively suggests that WtP increases with the strength of connection to the community, the authors find this only applies in the case of players with an achievement orientation. For those with a social orientation, WtP may actually decrease as their connection to the community increases. These perhaps counter-intuitive findings constitute a novel contribution of value for both theory and practice.
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Joseph, Daniel. "Battle pass capitalism." Journal of Consumer Culture 21, no. 1 (February 2021): 68–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469540521993930.
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This article investigates the origin, circulation and consumption of a new commodity – the “battle pass” – in the complex ludic economies of contemporary digital games. The article dives deep into the history and political economy of battle royale shooters and the game Apex Legends (2019), a free-to-play example of the genre monetized in part by a battle pass. Inspired and in dialogue with Nieborg and Poell’s (2018) theory of platformization, this article asks questions related to how digital games like this operationalize their status as ‘contingent commodities’. The article then engages in an ‘app walk-through’ ( Light et al., 2018 ) of Apex Legends, analysing its vision, operating model and governance. The focus here is on revealing the ‘mediator characteristics’ that structure in-game commodities like avatar skins, loot boxes and the battle pass. There is then a discussion and theorization of these monetization strategies and the industry-wide tendencies for consumerism they signal. A key takeaway is that digital consumption in games is at once both easy to ‘see’ but also highly abstracted, making it very difficult to pull apart what people are actually consuming when they engage with the monetization layer of contemporary digital games.
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Cho, Eun-Ha. "Monetization of Smartphone Games in South Korea, Japan, and China." Journal of Korea Game Society 17, no. 2 (April 30, 2017): 75–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.7583/jkgs.2017.17.2.75.
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Davidovici-Nora, Myriam. "e-Sport as Leverage for Growth Strategy." International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations 9, no. 2 (April 2017): 33–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijgcms.2017040103.
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While e-Sport today becomes a big business and a highly publicized industry, a big business and a highly-publicized industry, it is still studied from a descriptive perspective rather than from an analytical one. In this paper, the author proposes to analyze the relationship between e-Sport and the growth strategy of the game League of Legends (LoL) developed by Riot Games. How competitive community and casual community evolve together? What are the conditions for a virtuous growth? The author deepens the link between the traditional free-to-play dynamics based on acquisition-retention-monetization of players and the dynamics of e-Sport based on managing audience, pro-gamers, competitive events and broadcasting. The author finds that casual players and pro-gamers have specific roles that, combined with an active policy centered on player's experience developed by Riot Games and with a growing media ecosystem, create externalities on each other.
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Perks, Matthew E. "How Does Games Critique Impact Game Design Decisions? A Case Study of Monetization and Loot Boxes." Games and Culture 15, no. 8 (August 1, 2019): 1004–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412019865848.
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Games critics arguably influence the form games take, identities of players, and identities of game developers. However, very little work in Game Studies examines how critical games journalism, games, developers, and independent actors intersect. This article argues that pragmatic sociology of critique, developed by Luc Boltanski, can act as a theoretical framework to aid in understanding these processes of critique. Utilizing a theoretical lens such as this helps us better understand the function of games critique within the video game industry. Applying this framework to a case study of monetization and “loot boxes,” this article emphasizes the role and power of journalistic critique in shaping gaming cultures, and the consumption and production of media more generally.
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Harviainen, J. Tuomas, Janne Paavilainen, and Elina Koskinen. "Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Ethics Applied to Video Game Business." Journal of Business Ethics 167, no. 4 (April 16, 2019): 761–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04159-y.
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AbstractThis article analyzes the business ethics of digital games, using Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. It identifies different types of monetization options as virtuous or nonvirtuous, based on Rand’s views on rational self-interest. It divides the options into ethical Mover and unethical Looter designs, presents those logics in relation to an illustrative case example, Zynga, and then discusses a view on the role of players in relation to game monetization designs. Through our analysis of monetization options in the context of Objectivist ethics, the article contributes to discussions on game revenue ethics. It also expands the still understudied area of applying Rand’s ethics to business, in the context of a new sector, game development, and business. This research enables ethicists to apply a wider-than-before perspective on virtue ethics to online business, and helps game developers act in a virtuous manner, which provides them with a long-term business advantage.
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Seaford, Richard. "ARISTOCRACY AND MONETIZATION: PLATO, PARMENIDES, HERAKLEITOS, AND PINDAR." Greece and Rome 67, no. 1 (February 28, 2020): 54–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017383519000226.
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If there was an ‘aristocracy’ in the archaic and classical polis, how was it differentiated from the rest of the polis? There are various possible criteria for differentiating a socio-political elite, notably birth, legal status, education, virtue, power, access to deity, wealth, and performance (or display). European history has left us with a strong association between ‘aristocracy’ and the criterion of birth, which produces a relatively closed elite. As for the ancient Greek polis, however, an excellent recent collection of essays entitled ‘Aristocracy’ in Antiquity edited by Nick Fisher and Hans van Wees generally rejects earlier assumptions that a hereditary aristocracy is clearly identifiable, and gives some prominence instead to the criterion of display or performance (such as competing in Panhellenic games or erecting an image of an ancestor). My concern is not directly with this interesting controversy, but rather with a historical process that is almost entirely omitted by ‘Aristocracy’ in Antiquity (and by most other discussions of Greek aristocracy), namely the monetization of the polis that was made pervasive by the invention of coinage and its rapid spread in Greek culture from the early sixth century bce.
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King, Daniel L., and Paul H. Delfabbro. "Predatory monetization schemes in video games (e.g. ‘loot boxes’) and internet gaming disorder." Addiction 113, no. 11 (June 28, 2018): 1967–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/add.14286.
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Johnson, Mark R., and Jamie Woodcock. "“And Today’s Top Donator is”: How Live Streamers on Twitch.tv Monetize and Gamify Their Broadcasts." Social Media + Society 5, no. 4 (October 2019): 205630511988169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2056305119881694.
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This article examines cultural and economic behavior on live streaming platform Twitch.tv, and the monetization of live streamers’ content production. Twitch is approximately the thirtieth most-viewed website in the world, with over 150 million spectators, and 2 million individuals around the world regularly broadcasting. Although less well-known than Facebook or Twitter, these figures demonstrate that Twitch has become a central part of the platformized Internet. We explore a seven-part typology of monetization extant on Twitch: subscribing, donating and “cheering,” advertising, sponsorships, competitions and targets, unpredictable rewards for viewers, and the implementation of games into streaming channels themselves. We explore each technique in turn, considering how streamers use the affordances of the platform to earn income, and invent their own methods and techniques to further drive monetization. In doing so, we look to consider the particular kinds of governance and infrastructure manifested on Twitch. By governance, we mean how the rules, norms, and regulations of Twitch influence and shape the cultural content both produced and consumed within its virtual borders; and by infrastructure, we mean how the particular technical affordances of the platform, and many other elements besides, structure how content production on Twitch might be made profitable, and therefore decide what content is made, and how, and when. Examining Twitch will thus advance our understanding of the platformization of amateur content production; methodologically, we draw on over 100 interviews with successful live streamers, and extensive ethnographic data from live events and online Twitch broadcasts.
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Ilin, A. B., Yu S. Sizova, Yu D. Ponomareva, and S. D. Sizov. "E-SPORTS GLOBAL MARKET: CONTEMPORARY TRENDS." International Trade and Trade Policy 7, no. 2 (June 28, 2021): 47–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.21686/2410-7395-2021-2-47-61.
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The purpose of this study is to identify aspects of the e-sports commercialization and analyze its entrepreneurial core. Based on the of the economic science initial models, e-sports genesis, data from the author's sociological survey and secondary sources of information, elements of commercialization of the entrepreneurial core of e-sports are systematized. The main milestones of e-sports development in the world in general and in Russia in particular are monitored; examples of the e-sports development in the period of COVID-19 pandemic are given; market participants of the industry are identified. Comparative analysis of multilevel ecosystems of sports competitions in the field of traditional sports and e-sports is carried out; statistics of the global e-sports market from 2016 to 2019 and a description of the resource base of e-sports are given. The authors methodize the elements of commercialization and monetization of the entrepreneurial core of e-sports. Based on the results of the author's sociological survey, and the analysis conducted in the paper, it is concluded that the basis of the entrepreneurial core of e-sports is the intellectual and physical activity of people based on electronic games. Thus, e-sports can be considered to be a fundamentally new intellectual discipline, forming around itself stakeholders that contribute to its monetization. It is concluded that the e-sports business core is bottomed on the physical and intellectual activity of people based on electronic games. The results of the study can be used by various entrepreneurial structures working in the sports industry.
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Harvey, Alison. "The Fame Game: Working Your Way Up the Celebrity Ladder in Kim Kardashian: Hollywood." Games and Culture 13, no. 7 (February 21, 2018): 652–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412018757872.
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This article examines the simultaneously acclaimed and vilified mobile celebrity game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood ( KK: H). Through an analysis of popular discourse about the game in dialogue with its play experience, this article showcases the ways in which this scrutiny is tied to value judgments about celebrity culture, affective labor, and emerging monetization strategies in games. By exploring the game’s content, mechanics, and economics, I argue that KK: H’s mixed reception is a product of how these make visible celebrity labor and the work of self-branding, intimacy, and engagement in the attentional economy of social media. Through its form and functioning, this game reveals the intensities of women’s work in low-status activities, across play and celebrity culture, and, through this, challenges their devaluation. It is via this simulation of invisible labor, I argue, that KK: H represents an exemplar of what new ludic economies can indicate about the future of digital play.
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Barsky, Jonathan. "Fishing for whales: a segmentation model for social casinos." International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences 10, no. 4 (November 19, 2018): 400–421. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijqss-06-2017-0053.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new customer segmentation model for the social casino industry. The key contribution of this model is the introduction of original psychographic/taste data, including a player emotions scale. Design/methodology/approach The data for this research are based on player feedback from 22 countries, with evaluations of the top 100 social casino titles (apps). The new segmentation model splits the industry into distinct customer groups based on spending patterns, behavioral dimensions and attitudinal dimensions. Findings The results provide insight into game mechanics, social dynamics, player emotions, spend, price sensitivity, loyalty and other elements that impact monetization. Critical behaviors and preferences of social casino players that will help companies better understand and connect with their target customers are described. Originality/value This is the first study to develop a rigorous segmentation model of social casino games based on behavioral and psychographic data.
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Sergeyeva, O. V., and N. A. Zinovyeva. "The Public Arenas of Game Streaming (on the Example of the Coronavirus Topic Representation)." Sociology of Power 32, no. 3 (October 2020): 221–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2020-3-221-241.
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Video streaming has become very popular among game enthusiasts. Live streams of computer games, where there is the possibility of communication, are developing as community meeting places; a number of social scientists are calling this a trend towards new online “third places”. Today’s debate draws attention to the reproduction of a participation culture trough streaming, in the space of which everyone can express themselves creatively, share their opinion, experiences, and information. At the same time, there is a tendency towards the capitalist appropriation of streaming by media businesspersons who stimulate the monetization of participation. Investigating the “sociality of streaming”, the authors highlight the supplementation of the “Let’s Play” discourse with topics from the current agenda, understanding live streams as public media arenas. In the public arenas of computer game live streams, the dramatization and selection of global or local news information in a specific media format takes place. The article demonstrates this phenomenon using the example of the coronavirus, the most prominent topic of spring 2020. The pandemic vocabulary appears in different sections of Twitch game streams, such as titles, audio/ video content, and the chat. Banter and obscene vocabulary are characteristic of the game stream space, however, this is combined with charity fund-raising broadcasts in support of doctors.
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Xiao, Leon Y. "Regulating loot boxes as gambling? Towards a combined legal and self-regulatory consumer protection approach." Interactive Entertainment Law Review 4, no. 1 (August 2021): 27–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/ielr.2021.01.02.
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Loot boxes represent a popular and prevalent contemporary monetization innovation in video games that offers the purchasing player-consumer, who always pays a set amount of money for each attempt, the opportunity to obtain randomized virtual rewards of uncertain in-game and real-world value. Loot boxes have been, and continue to be, scrutinized by regulators and policymakers because their randomized nature is akin to gambling. The regulation of loot boxes is a current and challenging international public policy and consumer protection issue. This article reviews the psychology literature on the potential harms of loot boxes and applies the behavioural economics literature in order to identify the potentially abusive nature and harmful effects of loot boxes, which justify their regulation. This article calls on the industry to publish loot box spending data and cooperate with independent empirical research to avoid overregulation. By examining existing regulation, this article identifies the flaws of the ‘regulate-loot-boxes-as-gambling’ approach and critiques the alternative consumer protection approach of adopting ethical game design, such as disclosing the probabilities of obtaining randomized rewards and setting maximum spending limits. This article recommends a combined legal and self-regulatory approach: the law should set out a minimum acceptable standard of consumer protection and industry self-regulation should strive to achieve an even higher standard.
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Boghe, Kristof, Laura Herrewijn, Frederik De Grove, Kyle Van Gaeveren, and Lieven De Marez. "Exploring the Effect of In-Game Purchases on Mobile Game Use with Smartphone Trace Data." Media and Communication 8, no. 3 (August 13, 2020): 219–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i3.3007.
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Microtransactions have become an integral part of the digital game industry. This has spurred researchers to explore the effects of this monetization strategy on players’ game enjoyment and intention to continue using the game. Hitherto, these relationships were exclusively investigated using cross-sectional survey designs. However, self-report measures tend to be only mildly correlated with actual media consumption. Moreover, cross-sectional designs do not allow for a detailed investigation into the temporal dimension of these associations. To address these issues, the current study leverages smartphone trace data to explore the longitudinal effect of in-game purchase behavior on continual mobile game use. In total, approximately 100,000 hours of mobile game activity among 6,340 subjects were analyzed. A Cox regression with time-dependent covariates was performed to examine whether performing in-game purchases affects the risk of players removing the game app from their repertoire. Results show that making an in-game purchase decreases this risk initially, prolonging the survival time of the mobile gaming app. However, this effect significantly changes over time. After the first three weeks, a reversal effect is found where previous in-game purchase behavior negatively affects the further survival of the game. Thus, mobile games without previous monetary investment are more prone to long-term continual game use if they survive the first initial weeks. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed. As such, the current study adds to those studies that use computational methods within a traditional inferential framework to aid theory-driven inquiries.
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García-Álvarez, Ercilia, Jordi López-Sintas, and Alexandra Samper-Martínez. "The Social Network Gamer’s Experience of Play." Games and Culture 12, no. 7-8 (July 20, 2015): 650–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412015595924.
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We address the subjective experience of social network gamers playing Restaurant City, a game hosted on Facebook. We adopted a netnographic approach to studying the culture of transient Internet communities shaping the player off-line communities. Fieldwork was conducted over the entire life span of the game (3 years). Data were analyzed using a qualitative thematic approach and the software EdEt. The results describe the evolution of the gaming experience through online interaction and its importance in everyday off-line life. Players were observed to play an important role in the production of social meanings associated with gaming and with the gaming community online and off-line. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding how the gaming process is a far more complex scenario than envisaged by a business vision based on acquisition, retention, and monetization.
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Scully-Blaker, Rainforest. "Buying Time: Capitalist Temporalities in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp." Loading 12, no. 20 (November 20, 2019): 90–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1065899ar.
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In November 2017, Nintendo released Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (Nintendo 2017) for iOS and Android devices. At first blush, the game is much like previous instalments in the series. The player character finds themselves as a new denizen of a rural space populated by sentient animals that all have wants and offer rewards for those that satisfy those wants. However, the conversion of Animal Crossing from console game to mobile game was not without its major changes. A free-to-play game par excellence, Pocket Camp introduces Leaf Tokens, a separate currency from bells which can be bought with real money. Leaf Tokens can be used to buy certain in-game objects but, for the most part, are used to eliminate instances of waiting in the game, which stands in direct opposition to the series’ apparent valorization of slower, simpler living. Through a discussion of this translation of Animal Crossing’s mechanics and values into the mobile game genre, Pocket Camp is shown to gamify the capitalist monetization of time. In the face of this reality, the paper concludes examining the role of the player as a critical actor within this system and suggests that, far from being a passive victim of the game’s capitalist logics, one might engage with the game in subversive ways that articulate a virtual refusal of virtual labour and an instance of what the author has taken to calling radical slowness.
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Paavilainen, Janne, Kati Alha, and Hannu Korhonen. "A Review of Social Features in Social Network Games." Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association 3, no. 2 (September 22, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.26503/todigra.v3i2.71.
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Although social network games on Facebook have become popular, their actual sociability has been questioned. In this paper, we review the social features of 16 social games and, as a result, present a list of 30 social features in three categories: presence, communication, and interaction. A common set of features, which was found in all of the examined games, is mainly focused on the presence and communication aspects, while neglecting player interaction. In addition, social features are primarily used for acquisition and retention purposes, rather than monetization. These findings are useful for the study and design of social features in social games and in other games with social network integration.
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Skardzius, Karen. "MONETIZING RELATIONSHIPS: STREAMING ALONE WITH ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS." AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, October 5, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2020i0.11332.
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This paper is derived from a larger project that examines the experiences of women who live-stream video games on the Twitch.tv platform. To date, much of the research that has been done in the area of streaming is concerned with streamers who have a large following and/or derive their main source of income from streaming. Rather than directing more attention to those streamers who have attained ‘success’ as Twitch would frame it, this study is centered around a group of streamers unique from those who are typically the focus. First, I discuss the ways monetization influences community building. Second, I discuss some of the implications of paying for attention. Third, I discuss the pressure streamers feel to perform a particular kind of authenticity around monetization. Finally, I will discuss how monetization creates friction and competition between streamers. This work contributes the perspectives of 5 women whose experiences have been largely overlooked by existing research about streaming, as well as the analysis of another 50 Twitch channels run by women from diverse backgrounds and streaming interests. These findings demonstrate that the monetization features available to streamers and the everyday practices that have emerged through Twitch centered around monetization have a lot of influence over how people relate to each other, even for those streamers who are not trying to monetize their channels.
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Thorhauge, Anne Mette. "THE STEAM PLATFORM ECONOMY: CAPITALISING FROM PLAYER-DRIVEN ECONOMIES ON THE INTERNET." AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, October 5, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2020i0.11346.
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With this paper I aim to analyse and discuss the Steam game platform in a platform economic perspective. I will argue that Steam represents a special type of platform economy due to its roots in gaming economies: Steam’s platform economy can be seen as a specific way of capitalising on the player-driven economies that arise within and beyond key game titles offered on the platform. The API offered to third party developers on Steams websites can be described as a ‘palette of monetization strategies’ that run from simple retail models in the game store, over various ways of integrating user generated content in the Steam Workshop to the prospects of harnessing and capitalising from players’ economic action in the Community market. A look some of the most-played games titles shows that this gives rise to a variety of diverse monetization strategies. Many of those monetization strategies move beyond advertising and the attention economy, making players trades another potential source of income. In all cases, of course, Steam gets its share.
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Numminen, Riikka, Markus Juhani Viljanen, and Tapio Pahikkala. "Bayesian inference for predicting the monetization percentage in free-to-play games." IEEE Transactions on Games, 2021, 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tg.2020.3014660.
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Shinkawa, Hiroki, Tomonari Irie, Masanori Tanaka, and Kengo Yokomitsu. "Psychosocial Adjustment and Mental Distress Associated With In-Game Purchases Among Japanese Junior High School Students." Frontiers in Psychology 12 (August 3, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.708801.
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In-game purchases, including microtransactions and loot box spending, are the monetization systems of free-to-play online games. Although some studies have suggested that excessive in-game purchases increase the risk of psychosocial maladjustment and mental distress as well as predict future problematic gaming and gambling practices, empirical studies on problematic behavioral patterns related to in-game purchasing among adolescents are lacking. This study sought to explore whether knowing the style of in-game purchases (non-purchase, planned purchase, or unplanned purchase) could be useful when characterizing maladaptive behavior among adolescents from the perspective of psychosocial adjustment and mental distress. A total of 335 junior high school students (aged 12–15 years) participated in the survey and completed a questionnaire assessing daily online gaming usage, in-game purchases, psychosocial adjustment, and mental distress. The results showed that (1) 30.7% of students had previously made in-game purchases, and at least 14.0% had made unplanned in-game purchases; (2) 19.2% of the users who had made unplanned purchases had spent greater than or equal to their actual monthly allowance within the past month, and (3) unplanned purchase gamers exhibited more behavioral problems and peer problems regarding psychosocial adjustment compared to planned purchase gamers, and more overall difficulties compared to non-purchasers. Meanwhile, more hyperactivity/inattention was seen among in-game purchasers compared to non-purchasers, regardless of whether the purchase was planned or unplanned. These findings support that understanding whether adolescents make unplanned in-game purchases could be a useful approach to describing the characteristics of online gamers with maladaptive tendencies.
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Bombace, Michael P. "Blazing Trails: A New Way Forward for Virtual Currencies and Money Laundering." Journal For Virtual Worlds Research 6, no. 3 (September 16, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v6i3.7039.
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Virtual currencies grew up in virtual worlds. They were a central element in the game experience. They remain so and now represent a widespread form of value exchange on the Internet. They are an increasingly effective way to monetize games. Because of their versatility within games as part of game play and as a monetization method, they are a central tool of innovation for game developers. In tandem with their rise in use and complexity come anti-money laundering concerns. Their use for illegal acts is predicted to grow. Because of their still nascent state there is a window of opportunity to get regulation right and balance the cost of constraining innovation and online trade with the benefits of addressing anti-money laundering concerns. There is now some urgency because of recent regulatory guidance issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau of the United States Treasury Department.This paper presents a new approach. First, a data retention policy that includes identity authentication requirements. Second, restrictions on the use of payment systems at a high risk for abuse. Third, a safe harbor granting criminal and civil immunity for good faith efforts by game companies to help reduce the cost of compliance. Absent from this proposal are suspicious activity reports, which are expensive and place a burden that is handled better, and already done, by payment systems that connect to game companies, such as PayPal, and traditional services such as bank accounts or credit cards. Virtual currencies are an important tool for game developers that in turn provide real economic development and creativity that require unique treatment in the law. Regulation will occur—the question is how it will be crafted. This paper presents a path forward in that discussion.