Why do people buy virtual goods in MMOs?

by James Egan Jan 9th 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, Player Housing, Academic, Virtual worlds

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.

Hedonic attributes, or how the virtual gear looks or sounds, its provenance or its connection to the background fiction of the setting, and of course customizability.

Social attributes, particularly the prestige accorded with ownership of a rare item.

Have a look at his "Virtual item sales as a revenue model: identifying attributes that drive purchase decisions" for a thorough analysis of why many of us are so inclined to obtain something that's ultimately ephemeral, which goes beyond the simpler "useful vs. decorative" angle.

Tags: academic, armor, armor-set, culture, faction-ship, gear, gold, loot, mmo-industry, mount, mounts, player-housing, real-money-trade, real-money-trading, rmt, virtual, virtual-goods, virtual-items, virtual-worlds

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

moo said on 9:46PM 1-09-2009

Cause grinding for them ain't fun...... maybe if developers made mmorpgs as fun as single player games then it wouldn't feel like a 2nd job and we wouldn't wanna pay for the stuff instead.

Hardy said on 10:25PM 1-09-2009

The same reason people buy add-ons or extensions or fashion apparels for cars, systems, clothes etc.

Humans are simple. They emotionally grow attached to something after a long period of time.

Humans also was to look superior to their peers.

Humans are also lazy in this day and age.

All 3 of these make a perfect mix in a virtual environment because humans still get attached to "virtual" items just as much as they do real items.

This, they want to do it faster and look/be the best.
Shops just take advantage of this.