Abstract

Through combining conjoint individual analysis and numerical simulation, we studied game behaviour among China’s online game firms and their quality choices. By calculating equilibrium of firms’ different quality choices in a simulated online game market, we drew two conclusions: (1) Liberal market environment will stimulate firms to provide games with high quality; either innovations on profit model or R&D subsidies from government are able to move equilibrium towards a status with higher quality. (2) Some characteristics of online game players will also affect firms’ choice on online game quality, such as education background and length of the history of playing games. Current composition of online game players can still permit firms to gain profits and market share by low quality products, but as the maturing of the market, quality will finally be the most important factor for firms’ survival.

Key words: Online game, quality choice, conjoint analysis, numerical simulation.