A literature review on the concept of value in virtual worlds

Value creation in virtual worlds is an area of increasing interest to scholars, marketing researchers, and business practitioners. However, existing research centers upon value to businesses, while there is a lack of such research for consumer value in virtual worlds. Virtual worlds present a unique platform for business functions due to their high interactivity and openness, thus it is important to understand how value to the consumer is generated. This article therefore attempts to examine consumer value in virtual worlds. We established our research scope by defining the concepts of the terms “virtual world” and “consumer value”. Next we identified the utilitarian value and hedonic value as the two main components of consumer value. In addition, we recognized the cost and risk as the negative value created when consumers interacting with virtual world. Based on the value framework, we applied our findings of consumer value in the context of virtual world by showing the examples reflecting the specific value. Lastly, we suggested the research model and hypotheses associated with customer acceptance and participation in virtual world for future research.BUSINES