Fashion and player retention in MMORPGs : A case study of Final Fantasy XIV: A realm reborn

Sammanfattning: Expression and identification through virtual characters in MMORPGs has actively been, and is still being studied throughout the 21st century, and with the growing industry of video games, these studies become more and more relevant than ever. However, the same cannot be said about the subject of self-expression in terms of wearable items of clothing in MMORPGs. How players use the equipment/clothing available to create their own identity in the game, rather than solely rely on their character appearance in terms of the shape of the face or body. This study has chosen to focus its effort to first explore the relevance of player expression through fashion in MMORPGSs, and whether active players in the popular fantasy roleplaying game Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn participate in player fashion activities or gameplay features. For this reason, a hypothesis was also created for this specific study, which states that ‘Player fashion in MMORPGs positively impacts player retention’. The results of this study have shown that the gameplay feature/activity of player fashion does indeed impact how often players tend to come back to the same game, and keep on playing it for years. The result of this study opens the possibility for future studies to explore other areas in player fashion and could also serve as an interesting contrast between games of the same genre, and whether the same result could be said for those games as well.