• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.26
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• pp.285-313
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• 2005

Online game business has emerged as the most lucrative entertainment industry, with over 10 million players in South Korea and over 30 million in Japan in 2005. The popularity of online games can be attributed to the availability of broadband network, pushing online games into the mainstream entertainment culture. The age distribution of online game players is expanding and a variety of new games are under development to target certain age groups. While the interactive entertainment market continues to expand, with many new online game publishers entering Japan, relatively little is known about which factors influence online game players' behavioral intentions to play continuously in this area. It appears that in this extremely attractive and growing services segment, academics, as well as practitioners, would benefit from investigating the difference, among the types of players, in demographic and social trends, perceptions related to game-design factors, and attitude toward the games. Based on data collected from online questionnaire survey, the differences between hardcore and casual players have been analyzed, and interesting conclusions have been provided concerning the online-game design and development strategies for Japan online-game players.