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Thrifty Players in a Twisted Game World? — A Study on Private Online Game Servers [Abstract]

Online gamers' playing on private servers has become an important phenomenon in many parts of the world. For most of the popular online MMOGs (Massively multiplayer online games), unauthorized private servers operate in parallel to official servers. Although lack of reliable statistics on the scale of this 'informal sector' of game economy, game providers and authorized local distributors have been claiming substantial revenue loss due to private servers. Game industry also works closely with law enforcement authorities to crack down on illegal private servers and netcafés that provide services or access to them. These private servers of games are set up and operated by individuals who do not pay licensing fee to the game developer, but use the leaked, stolen, or hacked official source code to run the games in their own servers. The size of private servers varies, with the number of players on each server ranging from a few to several thousands, or even more. Private servers charge players with lower fees than official servers, sometimes employing a 'donation system' to collect voluntary payment and thus generate revenue. Such underground nature of private servers partly explained why attention on private game servers has been limited to legal and economic dimensions thus far. In mainstream game culture, the private server players are often seen as either thrifty players who chose to save monthly fees of official server, or super-achievers who go after unspeakably fast speed of leveling at the cost of a balanced gaming experience. Also, private game servers are regarded as the illegal substitute for official servers. According to the dominant viewpoint that the game industry commonly adopts, the role of private servers to public servers is like that of pirate music to the music labels—they are to be blamed for millions of dollars in lost sales. The number of players who play in private servers can be directly translated into loss in profit for the game companies. In this study, we try to explore what motivates players to join private game servers, why they choose to stay, and their distinctive gaming experiences in private servers. Our primary data collection method is in-depth interviews with private server players in Taiwan, supplemented by articles and messages related to private servers posted on local game bulletin boards and discussion forums. Our primary findings suggest that players' motivations for using private servers went far beyond the monetary incentives or satisfaction of …