1757 Virtual Community and Online Game Players Jengchung V. Chen National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan Yu-Hsiang Wang National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan V introduction Since the Internet and other IT technologies have become more popular than ever before, the amount of time people spend with computers and IT products, such as Internet and online games, has increased tre- mendously. The continuing boom of information and communication technology is causing the Internet to become a part of everyone's life. People use the Internet not only as a tool for their jobs, but also to participate in virtual communities. Even if the rate of Internet uptake slows considerably (Weisenbacher, 2002), the trend still remains growing. There were 275.5 mil- lion people using the Internet in February 2000. That number had changed to 605.60 million in September 2002 (Nua Ltd., 2002). According to Horrigan's study (2001), 84 percent of Internet users in America have participated in a virtual community. Moreover, apart from the number of people using Internet, the average time spent doing any activity online is increasing. Examples of virtual communities are found on bul- letin board systems (BBS), Internet relay chat (IRC), multi-user dimensions (MUD), and the World Wide Web (WWW). Each of these systems enables people from all over the world to connect together in the virtual spaces created by each respective system and communicate, have public discussion, and form virtual communities. These online groups exhibit a wide range of characteristics and serve a variety of purposes, from small groups engaged in tightly focused discussion of specific topics, to complex created worlds with hundreds of simultaneous participants, to millions of users linked by an interest in market or exchange networks for goods and information (Wilson & Peterson, 2002). This study introduces, first, the two popular kinds of online games, massive multi-user online game (MMOG) and multi-user domain (MUD), and the ways in which they are similar and different. The succeeding section looks further into the factors that cause these differences by using use and gratification (U&G) theory and interaction theory. Suggestions for research propositions and possible implications of such online game virtual communities use are proposed at the end of the entry. mAssivE multi-usER onlinE GAmEs (mmoG) Online computer games today have achieved tremen- dous market success. Millions of people connect online to play games everyday. The largest number of play- ers is usually found in MMOG and constitutes a big cyber-community that includes not only adolescents but adults as well. One of the leading MMOGs today is the Sony online game, EverQuest. Griffiths (2004) states that a choice of role-playing character affects style of the play and the reception of the character in the game directly. Consequently each character can be played as good or evil, as a member of a friendly or unfriendly race, and as exercising a profession that makes the character a team player or more of a loner. The players can either play group or solo in the virtual world. The appeal of MMOG is that there are many options a gamer can choose. For this reason, gamers are more attracted to MMOG than any other game, and that is why MMOG cannot be underestimated as an important study in this chapter. The main cause of Internet addiction is socializa- tion. "Since the aspects of the Internet, where people are spending the great amount of time online, have to do with social interactions, it would appear that socialization is what makes the Internet so addicting" (Grohol, 2003). For instance, going online is one of the easiest ways to interact with new people who share a common interest, without any physical barriers and, also, has low risk. Thus, people are easily attracted to the Internet. Copyright © 2008, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.