Identifying Influences of Game Upgrades on Profitable Players Behavior in MMORPGs

Abstract

Players can change their interest in continuing playing due to many reasons, such as the game content available to them. Therefore, game upgrades play an important role as they have the potential to influence players, being it a "double-edged sword", as players may like the new challenges or not. Among the active players, "whales" are those players that are the most profitable ones. The goal of this paper is to answer the following research question: "What are the influences of game upgrades on profitable players behavior?". To do that, we propose to apply and jointly interpret the results of four metrics (or KPIs): Commitment, Key Risk Indicator, Available Motivational Growth, and Game Refinement Value. This approach was applied to an MMORPG dataset that contains four kinds of upgrades. As results, the proposed joining identified three key influences and two players aspects, showing the potential to be used by game producers to evaluate the acceptance and influences of their upgrades in real situations.