The Avatar's new clothes: Understanding why players purchase non-functional items in free-to-play games
作者：
Highlights：
• Significant revenues in free-to-play online games through sales of virtual items.
• Purists detest “win-at-all-costs” mentality where real-world wealthy players enjoy advantage.
• Many games now give free “essential items”, and so fund by selling non-functional items.
• However, the motivations for purchasing non-functional items remain under-examined.
• Novel finding: purchase motivation is simply to transfer money to the developer, to keep playing.
摘要
•Significant revenues in free-to-play online games through sales of virtual items.•Purists detest “win-at-all-costs” mentality where real-world wealthy players enjoy advantage.•Many games now give free “essential items”, and so fund by selling non-functional items.•However, the motivations for purchasing non-functional items remain under-examined.•Novel finding: purchase motivation is simply to transfer money to the developer, to keep playing.
论文关键词：Virtual-items,Motivation,Free-to-play,Online games,Purchase
论文评审过程：Received 29 January 2018, Revised 3 September 2018, Accepted 11 September 2018, Available online 14 September 2018, Version of Record 28 September 2018.
论文官网地址：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.09.006
