Video games have become a major contributor to the US and global economy. This paper studies network externalities in the online video game industry. Even though network externalities are recognized as a major driver of new product diffusion, testing the existence and the impact of network...

In this paper, we examine the persuasive influences of online user comments (or word-of-mouth) and of the reviews by movie critics on moviegoers’ evaluation of to-be-released movies. Two distinctive features of this study are: (1) moviegoers are considered to be heterogeneous in their movie...

This paper uses actual WOM information to examine the dynamic patterns of WOM and how it helps explain box office revenue. The WOM data was collected from the website of Yahoo! Movies. The results show that WOM activities are the most active during pre-release and the opening week, and that...