How much will you pay in play in order to keep up with your friends?
According to renowned research on the psychology of free-to-play players cited by cyber-psychologist Berni Good at the F2P Summit in London, many players are more than happy to part with their cash if it means their in-game avatar gains the envy of their peers.
Indeed, Good cited research by Park & Lee on free-to-play players in South Korea that suggests that envy is one of the defining emotions when it comes to whether a consumer parts with their cash or not.
Emotions
"Envy and jealousy are both really strong emotions, and there's lots of research to suggest people struggle to keep a lid on both of them," detailed Good.
"In videogames, envy takes two forms. Benign envy is admiration of other player's capabilities they deserve that, they worked really hard for it. They're still envious of what their friends have achieved, but they recognise that it's been earned.
"In fact, this acts as motivation they want to hit the same heights."
Berni Good
Good noted that players are often "willing to pay a high value to get to the level of people they want to be at the level of." It's not exploitative, she suggested those players are more than happy to invest, as they see genuine value in said purchases.
The other form of envy, however - "wanting to pull their rivals down" - is far less pretty, but would also appear to be far less prevalent.
Identification
Similarly, one other trait identified by Park & Lee dubbed 'visual authority' suggests that many players spend in games in order to "up the ante in terms of their social status."
"That;s how you look on the outside and what you are prepared to do to impress other people," added Good.
"People will pay a premium to look a bit better keeping up with the Jones, that kind of thing."
None of this investment is wasted, however. As Good noted, Park & Lee's research which monitored 327 mainly male active online F2P players suggested, many gamers identify with their in-game avatars more than they do with their their lives in an offline environment.
As such, earning the respect of fellow players is as important as it is rewarding.
"People will identify more with their avatar than themselves," she noted. "Their emotions will be much stronger than in an offline environment."
Good did call for more research into ethics in free-to-play games, however, and the risk that some games coerce players into bogus purchases.