Empirical Research On Long-term User Loyalty Of MMOPRG-based On Chinese Native Market

In recent years, with the development of Internet and network economy, on-line games have been a highly profitable e-commerce application and playing a very important role in network entertainment and Internet industry.In the Chinese native market, the market value of on-line games is increasing markedly and number of players is rapidly growing. However, the development strategies and profit models of native on-line game operators are still unstable nor effective. How to cultivate players’willingness to long-term consumption and develop game users’long-term loyalty is the most essential issue for on-line game operators, and worth being discussed. According to Internet industry report in2009, the massively multiplayer on-line role playing game (MMORPG) has still been providing the most market value of on-line game. Therefore, researching on the MMORPG’s player consume intentions to consume and incentives of user long-term loyalty is crucial for the native on-line game market and Internet industry, which is therefore the core of the article.The reasons that people play the MMOPRG is an important area of research. This study views on-line games as entertainment technology. This study applies the technology acceptance model (TAM) that incorporates social influences and flow experience as beliefrelated constructs to predict users’acceptance and intention to long-term consume of MMOPRG. The proposed model was empirically evaluated using survey data collected from406users about their perceptions of MMORPG. Overall, the results reveal that though social norm is the most effective incentive for players to try a new game, extrinsic interest and flow experience are the determining factors of users’long-term loyalty. The implications of this study are also discussed and showed that the most efficient strategy for the native operators is to focus on developing games’team-play function to fulfill extrinsic interest.