TY - GEN
T1 - Unveiling group characteristics in online social games
T2 - 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2014
AU - Chung, Taejoong
AU - Han, Jinyoung
AU - Choi, Daejin
AU - Kwon, Taekyoung
AU - Kim, Huy Kang
AU - Choi, Yanghee
PY - 2014/4/7
Y1 - 2014/4/7
N2 - Understanding the group characteristics in MMORPGs is important in user behavior studies since people tend to gather together and form groups due to their inherent nature. In this paper, we analyze the group activities of users in Aion, one of the largest MMORPGs, based on the records of the activities of 94,497 users. In particular, we focus on (i) how social interactions within a group differ from the ones across groups, (ii) what makes a group rise, sustain, or fall, (iii) how group members join and leave a group, and (iv) what makes a group end. We first find that structural patterns of social interactions within a group are more likely to be close-knit and reciprocative than the ones across groups. We also observe that members in a rising group (i.e., the number of members increases) are more cohesive, and communicate with more evenly within the group than the ones in other groups. Our analysis further reveals that if a group is not cohesive, not actively communicating, or not evenly communicating among members, members of the group tend to leave. Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).
AB - Understanding the group characteristics in MMORPGs is important in user behavior studies since people tend to gather together and form groups due to their inherent nature. In this paper, we analyze the group activities of users in Aion, one of the largest MMORPGs, based on the records of the activities of 94,497 users. In particular, we focus on (i) how social interactions within a group differ from the ones across groups, (ii) what makes a group rise, sustain, or fall, (iii) how group members join and leave a group, and (iv) what makes a group end. We first find that structural patterns of social interactions within a group are more likely to be close-knit and reciprocative than the ones across groups. We also observe that members in a rising group (i.e., the number of members increases) are more cohesive, and communicate with more evenly within the group than the ones in other groups. Our analysis further reveals that if a group is not cohesive, not actively communicating, or not evenly communicating among members, members of the group tend to leave. Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).
KW - Group activity
KW - Group characteristics
KW - MMORPG
KW - Online social game
KW - Social interactions
KW - Socio-economic analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84909645321&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2566486.2568011
DO - 10.1145/2566486.2568011
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84909645321
T3 - WWW 2014 - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web
SP - 889
EP - 899
BT - WWW 2014 - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 7 April 2014 through 11 April 2014
ER -