Abstract
The main purpose of this chapter is to offer an overview of status seeking in online entertainment communities (OECs) and design issues associated with status seeking. Status refers to one’s standing in a social hierarchy as determined by respect, deference, and social influence (Ridgeway and Walker 1995). The value of status is demonstrated in the status-seeking behavior among participants of OECs. Status seeking is a particularly strong motivating force used by entertainment providers to promote the usage of online entertainment. It is therefore interesting to study the implications of status seeking for the design of OECs. In this chapter, we lay out the theoretical and empirical foundation for status seeking in OECs and provide a game-theoretic framework for analyzing it. We discuss a handful of design issues associated with status seeking in the context of OECs. We also identify several open issues for future research.1
We want to thank Matti Hämäläinen from CodeToys for helpful comments to our chapter and for providing numerous insights on online gaming. We also thank Herb Kelleher, Center for Entrepreneurship, for providing financial support for this research.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Armstrong, A. and J. Hagel (1996). The real value of online communities. Harvard Business Review 74: 127–141.
Bagnoli, M. and T. Bergstrom (1989). Log-concave probability and its applications. University of Michigan Center for Research on Economic and Social Theory Working Paper: 89–23.
Bales, R. (1953). The equilibrium problem in small groups. In T. Parsons, R. F. Bales, E. A. Shils (eds.), Working Papers in the Theory of Action, Glecoe, Free Press: 111–161.
Ball, S. B. and C. C. Eckel (1996). Buying status: experimental evidence on status in negotiation. Psychology & Marketing 13: 381–405.
Ball, S. B., C. C. Eckel, P. J. Grossman and W. Zame (2001). Status in markets. Quarterly Journal of Economics 116: 161–188.
Bartle, R. (1996). Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs. http://www.brandeis.edu/pubs/jove/HTML/v1/bartle.html.
Barkow, J. H. (1975). Strategies for self esteem and prestige in Maradi, Niger Republic. In Williams, T. R. (ed.), Psychological Anthropology, The Hague: Mouton, pp. 373–388.
BBC News (2003). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2931589.stm.
Berger, J. R., C. L. Fisek, M. H. Norman, Z. Robert (1998). The legitimation and delegitimation of power and prestige orders. American Sociological Review 63: 379.
Black, J. (2003). EA gets its game on: the video-game maker has a load of hit titles under its belt, including the Harry Potter series. And it may be about to hit the next level. Business Week Online, March 24, 2003.
Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York: Wiley.
Bolton, G. E. and A. Ockenfels (2000). ERC: A theory of equity, reciprocity, and competition. American Economic Review 90(1): 166–93.
Butler, B. (2001) Membership size, communication activity, and sustainability: a resource-based model of online social structures. Information Systems Research 12(4): 346–362.
Castronova, E. (2001). Virtual worlds: A first-hand account of market and society on the cyberian frontier. CESifo Working Paper No. 618.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). The costs and benefits of consuming. Journal of Consumer Research 27: 267–272.
Foremski, T. London, S. S. Morrison, and R. Waters (2003). The two-speed tech sector: As corporate spending stays flat, the industry sets its sights on users. Financial Times (London), December 2, p. 12.
Frost & Sullivan (2002). European global mobile gaming markets. Research Report.
Frank, R. H. (1985). The demand for unobservable and other nonpositional goods. American Economic Review 75(1): 101–16.
Fulk, J., A. J. Flanagin, M. E. Kalman, P. R. Monge, and T. Ryan (1996). Connective and communal public goods in interactive communication systems. Communication Theory 6(1): 60–87.
Fullerton, R. L. and R. P. McAfee (1999). Auctioning entry into tournaments. Journal of Political Economy 107(3): 573–605.
Gu, B. and S. Jarvenpaa (2003). Online Discussion Boards for Technical Support: the Effect of Token Recognition on Customer Contributions. Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE) 2003, December.
Huberman, B. A., C. H. Loch, et al. (2003). Status as a valued resource. Social Psychology Quarterly, forthcoming.
Hogg, M. A. and D. J. Terry (2000) Social identity and self-categorization processes in organizational contexts. Academy of Management Review 25(1): 121–140.
Jainchill, J. (2004). Gaming with an opponent who’s ‘over there’. The New York Times January 15, pp. E7.
Kalra, A. and M. Shi (2001). Designing optimal sales contests: A theoretical perspective. Marketing Science 20(2): 170–193.
Kanan, P. K., A. Chang, and A. B. Whinston (1998). Marketing information on the I-way. Communications of the ACM 41: 35–43.
Lazear, E. P. and S. Rosen (1981). Rank-order tournaments as optimum labor contracts. Journal of Political Economy 89(5): 841–864.
Lewis, P. (2003). The biggest game in town: Music? Sales down. Hollywood? Hit or miss. Tech? Flat. No wonder everyone wants to be in video game. Fortune, September 15.
Lin, N. (1990). Social Resources and Social Mobility: A Structural Theory of Status Attainment., In Ronald Breiger (ed.), Social Mobility and Social Structure, Cambridge University Press, pp. 247–271.
Lin, N. (1994). Action, social resources and the emergence of social structure. In Barry Markovsky, Jodi O’Brien, and Karen Heimer (eds.), Advances in Group Processes, vol. 11, pp. 67–85.
Liu, D., X. Geng, A. B. Whinston (2004). Optimal design of consumer contests. Working paper, University of Texas at Austin.
Loch, C. H. H., A. Bernardo, and S. Stout (2000). Status competition and performance in work groups. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 43(1): 35–55.
Lovaglia, M. J. (1994). Relating power to status. Advances in Group Processes 11: 87–111.
Lovaglia, M. J. (1997). Power and influence: A theoretical bridge. Social Forces 76: 571–603.
Moldovanu, B. and A. Sela (2001). The optimal allocation of prizes in contests. American Economic Review 91(3): 542–558.
Maslow, A. (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, New York: Van Nostrand.
Maslow, A. (1971). The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, New York: Viking.
McGuire, M. T. and M. J. Raleigh (1985). Serotonin—behavior interactions in vervet monkeys. Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 21: 458–463.
Nambisan, S. (2002). Designing virtual customer environments for new product developments for new product development: toward a theory. Academy of Management Review 27(3): 392–413.
Nelson, E. (2003). Advertising: Nielson ratings come under fire—television networks blame agency as number decline for young male viewers. The Wall Street Journal November 17: B10.
Ridgeway, C. L. and H. A. Walker (1995). Status structures. In Cook, K. S., Fine, G. A., and House, J. S. (eds.), Sociological Perspectives in Social Psychology. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon: pp. 281–310.
Ridgeway, C. L. and K. G. Erickson (2000). Creating and spreading status beliefs. American Journal of Sociology 106: 579–615.
Singh, N. and D. Witman (2001). Contests where there is variation in the marginal productivity of effort. Economic Theory 18(3): 711–744.
Shatz, M. (1993). What’s wrong with MBA ranking surveys? Management Research News 16(7) 304–328.
Staehlin, C. (2003). Making MMOGs: Redefining “product development”. Austin Game Conference 2003.
Thye, S. R. (2000). A status value theory of power in exchange relations. American Sociological Review 65: 407–432.
Tullock, G. (1980). Efficient rent-seeking. In J. B. et al. (eds.), Towards a Theory of the Rent-Seeking Society. College Station, TX: A&M University Press.
Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185: 1124–1131.
Tyrrell, P. (2003). Realities of a virtual economy. The Financial Times, September 28.
Wasko, M. M. and S. Faraj (2000). It is what one does: Why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice. Journal of Strategic Information Systems 9(2–3): 155–173.
Yee, N. (2002). Facets: 5 Motivation Factors for Why People Play MMORPG’s, http://www.nickyee.com/facets/home.html.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Liua, D., Gengb, X., Whinstona, A.B. (2007). Status Seeking and the Design of Online Entertainment Communities. In: Apte, U., Karmarkar, U. (eds) Managing in the Information Economy. Annals of Information Systems, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36892-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36892-4_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-34214-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-36892-4
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)