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The thesis is dedicated to the proper virtual economy setup of Massive Multiplayer Online Game to make the game competitive in this area to other products on the market. In addition to setting the economy on the example thesis includes a market analysis of computer and console games, comparison of virtual economy with real and comparison of the selected virtual economies based on defined criteria. The primary goal is to make a procedure for setting up the virtual economy and its verification. Another goals are the analysis of the games market, comparison of the games market economies and a demonstration of web game making. Game making is depended on its feasibility analysis, which is also included in the thesis. The work also verify the correctness of the settings according to the defined criteria.

This thesis explores how massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), as an exemplary new media form, disrupt practices associated with more conventional media. These intensely social games exploit the interactivity and networks afforded by new media technologies in ways that generate new challenges for the organisation, control and regulation of media. The involvement of players in constituting these games - through their production of game-play, derivative works and strong social networks that drive the profitability of the games - disrupts some of the key foundations that underlie other publication media. MMOGs represent a new and hybrid form of media - part publication and part service. As such they sit within a number of sometimes contradictory organising and regulatory regimes. This thesis examines the negotiations and struggles for control between players, developers and publishers as issues of ownership, governance and access arise out of the new configurations. Using an ethnographic approach to gather information and insights into the practices of players, developers and publishers, this project identifies the characteristics of the distributed production network in this experiential medium. It explores structural components of successful interactive applications and analyses how the advent of player agency and the shift in authorship has meant a shift in control of the text and the relations that surround it. The integration of social networks into the textual environment, and into the business model of the media publishers has meant commerce has become entwined with affect in a new way in this medium. Publishers have moved into the role of both property managers, of the intellectual property associated with the game content, and community managers. Intellectual property management is usually associated with the reproduction and distribution of finished media products, and this sits uneasily with the performative and mutable form of this medium. Service provision consists of maintaining the game world environment, community management, providing access for players to other players and to the content generated both by the developers and the other players. Content in an MMOG is identified in this project as both the 'tangible' assets of code and artwork, rules and text, and the 'intangible' or immaterial assets of affective networks. Players are no longer just consumers of media, or even just active interpreters of media. They are co-producing the media as it is developed. This thesis frames that productiveness as unpaid labour, in an attempt to denaturalise the dominant discourse which casts players as consumers. The regulation of this medium is contentious. Conventional forms of media regulation - such as copyright, or content regulation regimes are inadequate for regulating the hybrid service/publication medium. This thesis explores how the use of contracts as the mechanism which constitutes the formal relations between players, publishers and developers creates challenges to some of the regimes of juridical and political rights held by citizens more generally. This thesis examines the productive practices of players and how the discourses of intellectual property and the discourses of the consumer are mobilised to erase the significance of those productive contributions. It also shows, using a Foucauldian analysis of the power negotiations, that players employ many counter-strategies to circumvent the more formal legal structures of the publishers. The dialogic relationship between players, developers and publishers is shown to mobilise various discursive constructions of the role of each. The outcome of these ongoing negotiations may well shape future interactive applications and the extent to which their innovative capacities will be available for all stakeholders to develop.

Cette recherche interroge la production d’un savoir sur la communication qui résulte de la réflexivité communicationnelle induite par les échanges en ligne établis au sein d’un média informatisé. L’objectif est de comprendre comment se construit ce savoir en analysant le triptyque sujet/dispositif/autres usagers. Par la pratique de dispositifs comme l’arène de bataille en ligne multijoueur League of Legends ou du site de discussion féminin en ligne Confidentielles.com, les sujets s’engagent dans un « régime d’ajustement » visant à comprendre et à juger les situations de communication qui se présentent à eux. Le régime d’ajustement apparaît comme dynamique, inconscient, évolutif et se déroule simultanément à la pratique, par le biais d’opérations réflexives. Deux niveaux de réflexivité sont étudiés qui équivalent à des périodes de l’ajustement : le premier débute à la confrontation avec le dispositif, où les sujets apprennent à décrypter ce qui se joue dans la situation, définissent le comportement à adopter, et appréhendent l’importance du rapport aux autres. Le second s’effectue tout au long de la pratique pour gérer efficacement les différentes interactions et vivre au mieux l’expérience. Ces processus réflexifs induisent la production de savoirs ordinaires et s’accompagnent de l’adoption d’une « posture d’ethnologue-amateur » : les sujets développent une certaine sensibilité à décrypter les processus et à comprendre les situations de communication grâce aux « voyages » effectués entre le monde de la communication médiatisée et celui de la communication en face à face. / The research studies the process of making of a knowledge on the communication resulting from reflective communication in online interchanges within a computerized media. It aims at understanding how this knowledge is acquired by analyzing the following triptych : users/device/other users. When using device like a multiplayer online battle arena League of Legends or female online discussion website Confidentielles.com, the users get involved in a psychosocial « adjustment system » to understand and assess the situations of communication they are facing. Thus, since it is developed during the practice, the « adjustment system » appears to be dynamic, mechanical and progressive thanks to reflective process. Two levels of reflexivity corresponding to the stages of this adjustment will be studied. The first level starts when the user facing the device has to work out and estimate the situation, decide on the strategy to adopt and grasp the importance of relations with others. The second level takes place all through the practice to manage efficiently the various interactivities and be as happy as possible in the given situation. On the one hand, these reflective process infer the production of ordinary knowledge; in the other hand the user has to adopt the « amateur-ethnologist position » when developing skills to understand the process and the situations of communication thanks to the « trips » between mediated communication and face to face communication.

本研究之目的在於探討線上社群協作與其前置因素之關係，並且檢驗社群投入度之中介效果。首先，本研究應用角色內與角色外行為分類，提出角色內與角色外線上社群協作之類型。其次，依據社會認知理論與社會交換理論，本研究提出線上社群協作之前置因素，包括對個人之結果預期、對社群之結果預期、知覺社群信任、知覺社群規範、知覺社群支持與知覺社群認同。最後，本研究基於投入度觀點，檢驗社群投入度對於線上社群協作及其前置因素之中介效果。 本研究之研究情境為玩家公會社群，本研究自一知名大型多人線上遊戲中收集340份有效問卷進行資料分析與假設檢驗，研究結果顯示：(1) 除社群禮貌外，社群投入度對於社群合作行為、助人行為與運動家精神皆有正向影響；(2) 對個人之結果預期與線上社群協作行為之關係，會受到社群投入度所中介；(3) 對社群之結果預期與線上社群協作行為之關係，會受到社群投入度所中介；(4) 知覺社群信任與線上社群協作行為之關係，會受到社群投入度所中介；(5) 知覺社群規範與線上社群協作行為之關係，會受到社群投入度所中介，但社群規範對於運動家精神亦有直接負向效果；(6) 知覺社群認同與線上社群協作行為之關係，會受到社群投入度所中介，但社群認同亦會直接正向影響社群合作與助人行為；(7) 然而，知覺社群支持與線上社群協作行為之關係，並不會受到社群投入度所中介。針對上述之研究結果，本研究進一步闡述其學術研究意涵、實務管理意涵，以及研究限制與未來研究方向。 / The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between online community collaboration and its antecedents by examining the mediating effect of community engagement. First, this study proposes a classification of online community collaboration by following the typology of in-role and extra-role behaviors. Accordingly, this study will further examine some of online community collaboration behaviors, including community cooperation, helping behavior, community courtesy, and sportsmanship. Second, drawing upon social cognitive theory and social exchange theory, this study identifies several antecedents of online community collaboration, including person-relevant outcome expectancy, community-relevant outcome expectancy, perceived community trust, perceived community norms, perceived community support, and perceived community identification. Finally, from the perspective of engagement, this study will examine the mediating effect of community engagement on the proposed model. The research setting of this study is online gaming communities. After collecting 340 valid responses from a famous Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG), our results show that (1) community engagement affects community cooperation, helping behavior and sportsmanship positively, but does not have a significant effect on community courtesy; (2) the relationships between person-relevant outcome expectancy and three online community collaboration behaviors are mediated by community engagement; (3) the relationships between community-relevant outcome expectancy and three online community collaboration behaviors are mediated by community engagement; (4) the relationships between perceived community trust and three online community collaboration behaviors are mediated by community engagement; (5) the relationships between perceived community norms and three online community collaboration behaviors are mediated by community engagement, but perceived community norms also has a direct and negative impact on sportsmanship; (6) the relationships between perceived community identification and three online community collaboration behaviors are mediated by community engagement, but perceived community identification also has direct and positive impacts on community cooperation and helping behavior; (7) the relationships between perceived community support and online community collaboration behaviors are not mediated by community engagement. According to these findings, this study concludes with research implications, managerial implications, research limitations and future research directions.