Online game involves a very large number of users who are interconnected and interact with each other via the Internet. We studied the characteristics of exchanging virtual goods with real money through processes called "real money trading (RMT)." This exchange might influence online game user behaviors and cause damage to the reputation of game companies. We examined in-game transactions to reveal RMT by constructing a social graph of virtual goods exchanges in an online game and identifying network communities of users. We analyzed approximately 6,000,000 transactions in a popular online game and inferred RMT transactions by comparing the RMT transactions crawled from an out-game market. Our findings are summarized as follows: (1) the size of the RMT market could be approximately estimated; (2) professional RMT providers typically form a specific network structure (either star-shape or chain) in the trading network, which can be used as a clue for tracing RMT transactions; and (3) the observed RMT market has evolved over time into a monopolized market with a small number of large-sized virtual goods providers.
In this paper, we provide valuable information to prove the claims made in previous studies. For example, Heeks @cite_3 explained that RMT providers pursued economies of size and scale in the RMT market. We confirmed that this phenomenon was observed through our analysis of the virtual goods trading networks in the real game dataset.
@cite_3
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This paper has three purposes. First, it extends the range of economic ideas that have been applied to massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs), drawing on scale economies, exchange rates, and information failure. It does this, as its second purpose, by deepening the analysis of one relatively-neglected aspect of virtual economies—gold farming (the production of MMOG virtual currencies, items, and services for financial gain) and trading—in order to understand in-game, out-game, and hybrid aspects of this activity. Third, the paper draws conclusions about two key real virtual issues on which earlier literature has disagreed. One is the extent to which standard real-world economic models are applicable to virtual economies. The paper argues a strong fit of standard models for analysis of gold farming and trading with little need for modification, but that MMOGs may be better understood through the lens of development economics rather than mainstream economics. The other issue discussed is the nature of the relation between the real and the virtual. On this, the paper concludes that gold farming is part of a dynamic that has eroded the real virtual dichotomy. At the least, gold farming and trading represents the intersection and blurring of the real and the virtual. At most, it reflects their indistinguishability. Finally, the paper ends by identifying alternative systemic models for understanding gold farming specifically, and MMOGs more generally.