If you build it they might stay: retention mechanisms in World of Warcraft

Authors:
Thomas Debeauvais;Bonnie Nardi;Diane J. Schiano;Nicolas Ducheneaut;Nicholas Yee
Affiliations:
University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA;University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA;Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, East Meadow Circle, Palo Alto, CA;Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CA;Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games
Year:
2011

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Abstract

We analyze mechanisms of player retention and commitment in massively multiplayer online games. Our ground assumptions on player retention are based on a marketing model of customer retention and commitment. To measure the influence of gameplay, in-game sociality, and real-life status on player commitment, we use the following metrics: weekly play time, stop rate and number of years respondents have been playing the game. The cross-cultural sample is composed of 2865 World of Warcraft players from North-America, Europe, Taiwan, and Hong-Kong who completed an online questionnaire. We differentiate players in terms of demographic categories including age, region, gender and marital status.