The effects of users' motivation on their perception to trading systems of digital content accessories: Focusing on trading items in online games

As the market for digital content accessories grows, motivation for trading digital content accessories has significant effects on their fun, transaction cost, and intention to trade and use digital contents. However, few empirical studies have investigated users' perception of trading digital content accessories. The main purpose of this study is to construct and verify a research model identifying the relationships among the attributes of transaction, users' perceived fun and transaction cost, and the intention to trade and use digital contents, all of which are modulated by users' motivation. The research model was constructed based on transaction cost theory and motivational theory. An experiment in a real massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) environment was conducted and the results indicate that users' different motivations have effects on their perception to digital content accessories trading systems, intention to use those systems, and intention to use digital contents.