Competition between real-life friends and virtual-life friends

Abstract

With the rapid growth of social gaming market, it is of importance to investigate how to encourage players to contribute more economic value to the company. We analyzed a social gaming dataset from one of the social media leaders in China. The result suggests social influence from players' friends is one factor derive players to spend money. Also, it suggests social influence generated by friends known only in the game is statistically stronger than by friends known also in the real world.