Design of an in-game economic system based on virtual currency and its impact on player behavior

Online game, also known as online game, refers to a form of game in which the game process requires connecting the game operator’s server and the user’s computer through the public Internet, and utilizing the game client software for information interaction. The game account takes the account number and password as the external manifestation form, and the storage space of the network server as the carrier, which connects the real space of human beings with the virtual space of the game.

Game account as a game player’s personal play experience of the whole collection, each game player to its investment of time, energy, money is different, the role of the acquisition of props are not. This indicates that even if there exists a market for trading game accounts, the trading prices of other game accounts in that market cannot be used as a direct reference for determining value.The price of a game account in a transaction is greatly affected by the subjective factors of both the seller and buyer. If the perpetrator sells the victim’s game account to sell the stolen goods, the amount of the stolen goods is likely to be very different from the true value of the game account, and it is not convenient to use it as a criterion for determining the amount of the crime.

Virtual currency in online games [19-20] is an electronic exchange instrument in the form of an electromagnetic record of existence issued by the game operator and expressed in digital units. Users can purchase or exchange these tokens for legal tender at a specific rate and store them within the servers provided by the game operator.

These virtual currencies can be exchanged for online game services provided by the enterprise, usually in the form of prepaid recharge cards, points or amounts, and do not contain items such as props obtained through game activities, and the virtual currencies can also be exchanged for game props, game coins or other value-added services.

Game props, or game items, are a collective term for various virtual items in games. Game props are generally of different types, such as equipment-type, consumable-type, quest-type, material-type, and so on. There are various ways to obtain them, such as dropping them by fighting monsters, completing game tasks, purchasing or exchanging them through NPC merchants in the game, purchasing them directly in game malls using virtual currencies, and trading or auctioning them with other players within the game. The value of game props is greatly affected by many factors. For example, the network operator’s adjustments and modifications to the game, the increase or decrease in the value of specific props or changes in the probability of dropping will affect the value of the props in the players. Game props are only valuable to players who play the same online game, and among such players, a stable trading price system is often formed, and players trade game props with each other through official or third-party intermediary platforms, which is no different from online shopping for real goods.

The economic system constructed in this paper is a typical large-scale economic system in which in-game and rechargeable coins circulate. Here is the introduction of the basic concept of economic system elements in the game.

Gold: the game currency circulating in the game, the most important way is still from the daily quests to obtain, day after day to form the accumulation and circulation, so as to constitute the basic currency transactions.

Yuanbao: the rechargeable coins in the game, only paid players can get Yuanbao after recharging and exchanging, which itself cannot circulate, but can get different materials by purchasing different categories of mall items to achieve the expectation of final consumption.

Boxes: Various random props in the mall that require Yuanbao to be purchased and opened can be uniformly referred to as boxes. Boxes are the guarantee of Yuanbao’s consumption diversity. More than 70% of the consumption items are produced through the box output.

Materials: The tradable items produced in the chests can be uniformly called materials. Players buy and sell materials using gold coins to fulfill their needs, which is an important link in the circulation process of the economic system.

Treasure Pavilion: the official trading platform, players can buy and sell materials, gold coins and even the account itself, due to the official technical support, credibility and convenience is guaranteed, is the most core use of the most widely used circulation platform.

Equipment Synthesis: Through equipment synthesis, players consume various items and gold coins to obtain better equipment, thus enhancing their own attributes.

System Recycling: In the process of the game, many operations need to pay gold coins directly to the system at NPCs, and these gold coins will not enter the circulation again, and will be directly recycled by the system to disappear, which is the most important and direct means of controlling inflation.

Non-growth consumption: After the paid player spends, there is no enhancement of attributes, which becomes non-growth consumption. This can be roughly categorized as ornamental consumption and ostentatious consumption.

Let y be an observable random variable that receives the effect of p non-random factor x_I,x₂,⋯,x_p and random factor ε and y has a linear relationship with x_l,x₂,⋯,x_p. The multiple regression linear equation is given by: (1) y=β0+βlxl+...+βpxp+ε \[y\;=\;{{\beta }_{0}}\;+\;{{\beta }_{l}}{{x}_{l}}\;+\;...\;+\;{{\beta }_{p}}{{x}_{p}}\;+\;\varepsilon \] where y is the dependent variable. x_i(i = 1,2,⋯,p) is the independent variable. β_i(i = 0,1,2,⋯,p) is the regression coefficient, which reflects a measure of the linear effect of the ith independent variable x_i on the dependent variable y. ε represents the error between the regression value and the measured value, which is usually assumed ε~N(0,σ²).

With n independent observations of y and x_i(i = I,2,⋯,p), n sets of sample data (x_i1,x_i2,⋯,x_ip; y_i)(i = I,2,⋯,n) are obtained: (2) {y1=β0+β1x11+β2x12+...+βpx1p+ε1y2=β0+β1x21+β2x22+...+βpx2p+ε2⋮yn=β0+β1xn1+β2xn2+...+βpxnp+εn \[\left\{ \begin{matrix} {{y}_{1}}={{\beta }_{0}}+{{\beta }_{1}}{{x}_{11}}+{{\beta }_{2}}{{x}_{12}}+...+{{\beta }_{p}}{{x}_{1p}}+{{\varepsilon }_{1}} \\ {{y}_{2}}={{\beta }_{0}}+{{\beta }_{1}}{{x}_{21}}+{{\beta }_{2}}{{x}_{22}}+...+{{\beta }_{p}}{{x}_{2p}}+{{\varepsilon }_{2}} \\ \vdots \\ {{y}_{n}}={{\beta }_{0}}+{{\beta }_{1}}{{x}_{n1}}+{{\beta }_{2}}{{x}_{n2}}+...+{{\beta }_{p}}{{x}_{np}}+{{\varepsilon }_{n}} \\ \end{matrix} \right.\] where ε_l,ε₂,⋯,ε_n are independent of each other and all obey N(0,σ²), the above equation can be expressed in matrix form: (3) Y=Xβ+ε \[Y=X\beta +\varepsilon \] where Y = (y_l,y₂,⋯,y_n)^T,β = (β₀,β₁,β₂,⋯,β_p)^T ,ε = (ε_l,ε₂,⋯,ε_n)^T, ε ~ N_n(0,σ²I_n), I_n are unit matrices of order n: (4) X=[1x11x12...x1p1x21x22...x2p⋮1xn1xn2...xnp] \[X=\left[ \begin{matrix} 1 & {{x}_{11}} & {{x}_{12}} & ... & {{x}_{1p}} \\ 1 & {{x}_{21}} & {{x}_{22}} & ... & {{x}_{2p}} \\ {} & {} & \vdots & {} & {} \\ 1 & {{x}_{n1}} & {{x}_{n2}} & ... & {{x}_{np}} \\ \end{matrix} \right]\]

Applying the least-squares method, the least-squares estimate of b₁,b₂,…,b_p is calculated to be β₀,β₁,β₂,…,βb_p, respectively, and this multiple linear regression equation is: (5) y=b0+blxl+...+bpxp \[y\;=\;{{b}_{0}}\;+\;{{b}_{l}}{{x}_{l}}\;+\;...\;+\;{{b}_{p}}{{x}_{p}}\]

Multiple linear regression model is only a hypothesis, in the actual problem, to determine whether the model has a good fit with the actual data, the significance of the linear relationship of the model, etc., but also need to be tested through the combing statistics to decide whether the model is scientifically applicable. The commonly used test is the F-test:

The test of significance of the regression equation is designed to make a judgment as to whether the linear relationship between y and x_l,x₂,⋯,x_p in the model holds significantly in the aggregate.

The original hypothesis is H₀ : β_I = β₂ = ⋯ = β_p = 0 The alternative hypothesis is H_i : β_j Not all 0 If the original hypothesis is valid, there is no significant linear relationship between the dependent and independent variables in the model and the statistic F is constructed to test it: (6) F=∑1n(yi−y¯i)2/p∑1n(yi−y^i)2/(n−p−1)~F(p,n−p−1) \[F=\frac{\sum\limits_{1}^{n}{{{({{y}_{i}}-{{{\bar{y}}}_{i}})}^{2}}}/p}{\sum\limits_{1}^{n}{{{({{y}_{i}}-{{{\hat{y}}}_{i}})}^{2}}}\;/(n-p-1)}\tilde{\ }F(p,n-p-1)\]

Given a significance level of α , check the table to get F_α(p,n–p–I). The test rule is:

If F ≤ F_α(p,n–p–1), the original hypothesis is accepted and the regression model cannot be used for prediction.

If F > F_α(p,n–p–l), the original hypothesis is rejected, indicating that the regression model is significant and can be used for predictive analysis.

The in-game economic system and player game behavior (social behavior, competitive behavior, immersion behavior, and consumption behavior) were analyzed using regression analysis.Table 5 displays the results of the regression analysis of player game behavior based on the economic system.

According to the data in the table, it can be seen that Currency stability, Rationality of price, Balance of distribution, Game experiability, and Fairness of game provided by the system in this paper have a positive influence on players’ game behavior. The regression coefficients for players’ social behavior, competitive behavior, immersion behavior, and consumption behavior range between 0.106 and 0.383, and all of them are significantly different.Among them, the influence on consumption behavior is the largest, with regression coefficients range from 0.219 to 0.383, which passes the significance test at the 0.001 level. That is, if the factors of this paper’s system are increased by one unit, the player’s consumption behavior can be increased accordingly at the 0.001 level by 0.219~0.383. This indicates that the more comprehensive this paper’s system is, the more the player’s game consumption behavior will increase.Driven by the economic system, players want to have fun in the game but also obtain better props, equipment, clothing, etc. in the game, they need to pay for it.