This paper explores a unique new source of social valuation: a market for bodies. The internet hosts a number of large synthetic worlds which users can visit by piloting a computer-generated body, known as an avatar. Avatars can have an asset value, in that users can spend time to increase their...

In this paper we introduce a model that is suitable to study the diffusion of new and dominant multi-generation technologies. Examples are computer operat- ing systems, mobile phone standards, video game consoles. Our model incorporates three new features that are not included in related models....

It is well established in the literature that customer retention is at least as important as customer acquisition, especially in the freemium-based virtual economy, in which individuals are connected by multi-relational social networks, such as the “friendships” and “guilds” (virtual...

Several million people currently have accounts in massively multi-player online games, places in cyberspace that are effectively large-scale shared virtual reality environments. The population of these virtual worlds has grown rapidly since their inception in 1996; significantly, each world also...

The world game industry, especially the mobile game market, has grown rapidly in recent years. One of the interesting characteristics of mobile game performance is that its lifetime is remarkably short compared to that of online games and most downloads are peaked in the early period of the...