온라인 게임의 속성이 온라인 게이머들의 선호도에 미치는 영향에 대한 탐색적인 연구

Many online content providers who use the Internet to distribute contents, such as news, music, games, books, and other types of information, have been experiencing an extremely competitive business environment. To survive in this environment, they have started charging a fee for the contents that they provide. However, there have been very few success stories in commercializing online contents. One of the biggest hurdles may be customers’ psychological resistance against paying a fee for the contents that have been free of charge previously. Without examining customers' perceived prices for online contents, many online content providers have tended to decide their prices by themselves. Online games are not exceptional cases. Although many online game-related research works have focused on psychological and technical aspects, very few works have examined online gamers' preference carefully. This study aims at exploring online gamers’ preference by measuring their WTP (willingness to pay) for online games.