Virtual Item Insights

Superdata Research in conjunction with Live Gamer is publishing a new research series focused on Virtual Items. Subsequent issues to follow every 6 weeks.

• Issue #2: Seasonality Virtual Item Insights
• Issue #1: Seasonality Superdata Research

White Papers

Find the latest information about current micro-transaction and digital content monetization trends here.

• Tackling a Fragmented Europe (2011)
• Live Gamer Primer on Virtual Currencies (2010)
• Think Equity Interview with Mitch Davis (2010)
• Virtual Consumption - Vili Lehdonvirta (2009) [Doctoral Thesis] Publications of the Turku School of Economics (A-11:2009), Turku
• Virtual Consumerism: Case Habbo Hotel - Vili Lehdonvirta, Terhi-Anna Wilska & Mikael Johnson (2009) Information, Communication Society, vol. 12 no. 7, pp. 1059-1079.
• Game Design as Marketing: How Game Mechanics Create Demand for Virtual Goods Juho Hamari & Vili Lehdonvirta (2010) Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 14-29
• Virtual Item Sales as a Revenue Model: Identifying Attributes that Drive Purchase Decisions Vili Lehdonvirta (2009) Electronic Commerce Research, vol. 9, no.1 pp. 97-113.
• Incentives in the Wild: Leveraging Virtual Currency to Sustain Online Community Y. Wang, S. Mainwaring.
• “Human-Currency Interaction”: Learning from Virtual Currency Use in China Y. Wang, S. Mainwaring, In Proceedings of The 26th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI08), Florence, Italy, pp. 25-28, 2008.
• Industry Insights: Success Stories in the micro-transaction Business August 3, 2009 by Nima Pourshasb and Laura Brown, Live Gamer
• Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on ìGold Farmingî : Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games Richard Heeks. Institute for Development Policy and Management, The University of Manchester
• Virtual Item Monetization: A Powerful Revenue Opportunity for Online Game Publishers and Virtual World Operators (2008)

Other Resources:

• Live Gamer Advisor Vili Lehdonvirta's Site:
  www.hiit.fi/~vlehdonv
• Our friends at the Virtual Economy Research Network:
  www.virtual-economy.org