ABSTRACT Dramatic improvements in high-speed and mobile connectivity have been changing the way people enjoy games. In-game purchases, virtual currency, game feature design for heterogeneous consumers, and strong competition are key challenges for game providers. This study addresses the determination of optimal game design strategies for game providers in the presence of heterogeneous players and copycat competitors. Specifically, the study incorporates pricing of virtual goods/currency into the free-to-play (F2P) mobile game design for both monopoly and duopoly cases and characterizes the optimal strategies for game providers in terms of pricing of virtual goods/currency and the game challenge level. In both cases, we derive optimal pricing and game challenge levels for game providers. In a monopoly setting, it is always in the game provider’s best interest to make the game as challenging as possible. In a duopoly setting, a reasonable first mover advantage in the form of discounted value to copycat games is required for the original providers to create original games. Our results provide useful guidelines for mobile game developers facing a threat from copycat competitors.

中文翻译：

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为竞争市场设计免费手机游戏

摘要高速和移动连接的显着改进已经改变了人们享受游戏的方式。游戏内购买、虚拟货币、面向异构消费者的游戏功能设计以及激烈的竞争是游戏提供商面临的主要挑战。本研究解决了在存在异类玩家和模仿竞争对手的情况下为游戏提供商确定最佳游戏设计策略的问题。具体而言，该研究将虚拟商品/货币的定价纳入了针对垄断和双头垄断情况的免费 (F2P) 移动游戏设计，并在虚拟商品/货币和游戏的定价方面描述了游戏提供商的最佳策略挑战级别。在这两种情况下，我们都会为游戏提供商推导出最佳定价和游戏挑战级别。在垄断环境下，使游戏尽可能具有挑战性始终符合游戏提供商的最大利益。在双头垄断环境中，原始供应商创造原创游戏需要合理的先发优势，即山寨游戏的折扣价值。我们的结果为面临山寨竞争对手威胁的手机游戏开发者提供了有用的指导。