In an online game, multiple players virtually play the game together and are ranked based on their in-game performance through competition. Online games update constantly and continuously (i.e., a modification in the game content after its release), changing the game every time. This research examines the effect that these game updates have on individual gameplay. We compared 9342 players' daily gameplay for a month before and after updates across eighteen updates over seven online games. There are two novel findings. First, middle-ranked players tend to play the game more than high and low-ranked players before an update. Second, contrary to the widespread notion that game updates trigger players to increase their gameplay, online game updates only increase the gameplay of high and low-ranked players. Conclusively, high and low-ranked players tend to play the game more than the middle-ranked players after an update.

在在线游戏中，多个玩家实际上是一起玩游戏，并根据他们在比赛中的游戏表现来排名。在线游戏持续不断地更新（即，发布后对游戏内容的修改），每次都会改变游戏。这项研究检查了这些游戏更新对单个游戏玩法的影响。我们比较了七个在线游戏的十八次更新前后，一个月前后9342个玩家的每日游戏玩法。有两个新颖的发现。首先，在更新之前，中级玩家比高级玩家和低级玩家更倾向于玩游戏。其次，与广泛的观念相反，游戏更新会触发玩家增加游戏玩法，而在线游戏更新只会增加高低排名玩家的游戏玩法。最后，