Why do people buy virtual goods in MMOs?  

Posted by Irie Rastafari in

Massively multiplayer online gamers spend hours -- so many hours -- working towards obtaining virtual gear. Epic armor sets, mounts, player housing, faction ships... the list goes on, and will continue to go on. Our collective fascination with these intangibles ensures our desire for them -- and for those things beyond a player's reach solely within the virtual realm, real world cash makes all things possible.

This is the research focus of Ph.D. student Vili Lehdonvirta of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, who breaks down our buyer's impulse according to three criteria:

Functional attributes, such as speed, hitpoints, teleportation.

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This entry was posted on April 19, 2009 at Sunday, April 19, 2009 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

1 comments

Well if the accounts and items have value, they can always get their money back by reselling the items.

May 1, 2009 at 8:22 PM

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