Research On The Profit Model Of Free Online Game

With the development of the economy and science, internet has been part of people’s life. Computers spread rapidly and became more and more popular except the first-tier and second-tier cities, even in poor country. Simultaneously, internet economy also developed drastically. According to statistics released by IResearch Consulting Group, in first quarter of2012, our internet economy scale reached9.434million yuan, increased66.1percent. Online game industry, an important part of internet economy, has emerged in20th century, and has become bellwether. Over the past several years, the size of network game industry has been expanded.Every industry have a difficult development history, from immature and irregular to mature and regular. Online game operators get benefits and realize capital primitive accumulation through being agents of foreign games. In the context of China’s unique culture and market characters, they do some research, development and advertisement, then, they start to operate. Innovation in profit model of online game boosts China’s network game.In China, scholars focus one firm or one field much more on profit model. The researches are not only lacking of system and theory, but there is no more specific description. This thesis adopts way of case study, takes a game "journey" developed by Giant Interactive as an example, represents its sales strategy both in market promotion and operation process in detail in a free marketing angle, and analyzes its profit model in depth. In the end, we give some advice about problems which occurred in process of free profit model。This can not only offer some guidelines to game operators, at the same time, inspire entity enterprises to innovate in profit model.This thesis includes six parts. The first part gives some basic information, like background, theoretical and practical significance, research methods and main innovations and so on, which can help audiences know general situation easily. The second represents current situation of profit model both in China and foreign countries, mainly concentrating on definition and classification of profit model. Besides, some scholars also study a product or websites of a certain kind. For free marketing, they mainly concentrate on its definition, free strategy and free profit model. In addition, we also list different views of domestic and foreign scholars about free economy.The third part is on case background, including introduction of Giant Interactive and products of "journey", which can make audiences know the company’s history and the game’s specific function. In the fourth part, we discuss the formation of free model, specific analysis of free profit model and marketing strategy. The fifth part gives conclusion of questions raised in forth part, including premise, key and guarantee of profit. In the last part, we discuss the limit of the thesis and the future of this topic.