Abstract
The digital gaming business has changed in the last years. Digital games are no longer just products. They developed into services. People play games not only on a stationary device, but on mobile devices, too. The change of gaming devices also had an impact on game design. Competition between mobile digital games mostly takes place at a download price of zero. Today the Freemium monetization method is the dominant monetization method. Players of digital games often have to go through a core loop by repeating the same tasks inside the game. The stability of the virtual economy inside the game affects the game’s core loop. This paper discusses the role of instability in virtual economies in the context of core loops. A small instability inside a virtual economy can increase revenue of a digital game. Players tend to stay in a game because of sunk cost fallacy. If instability inside a virtual economy happens for a too long time players will quit playing and revenue will decrease.
Highlights
The way people play mobile digital games has changed
Transferring the sunk cost bias in the context of sunk cost fallacy in mobile digital games, this leads to the result that a small amount of instability inside a virtual economy is needed to increase profit
Some mobile digital games are designed to strengthen effects of loss aversion and sunk cost fallacy. An exploitation of these effects can happen by a high instability inside a virtual economy
Summary
The way people play mobile digital games has changed. Mobile digital games became more popular over the last years [10]. The majority of mobile digital games are available without a price per download and make money via in-app purchases [7]. Players can download the applications for free and test the game If they like it, they can get an advantage in the game by purchasing a virtual currency or other premium features. Mobile gaming applications sometimes take advantage of dark gaming patterns and behavioral economic theories to motivate players to buy premium features inside the game via in-app-purchases [2] [3] [4] [8] [9]. To answer the research question, a theoretical framework and the role of commanders inside the game need to be discussed. In the last chapter conclusions and further research approaches will be discussed
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