Utility of Virtual Games and Time Allocation Behavior of Game Players: A Multi-extended Utility Framework

On-line games have become a new way of entertainment. In order to analyze why people choose to enter an online game which might harm their real life and job, and how they allocate time between real world and virtual world, this paper proposed a Multi-Extended Meta-Utility Function where people get physiological, psychological and monetary satisfaction from the real world (main utility function) and the virtual world (auxiliary utility function). People will balance their time allocation between the two worlds to maximize their meta-utility. We also proposed a method of survey on the lowest monetary compensation for people cutting online game-play time, to indirectly measure the relative psychological satisfaction and utility value from virtual games compared with that from the real world. Results from survey show that pure psychological utility from virtual activities is much higher than that from the real world, which drives people into the virtual games.