Predicting the Currency Market in Online Gaming via Lexicon-Based Analysis on Its Online Forum

Abstract

Transactions involving virtual currencies are becoming increasingly common, including those in online games. In response, predicting the market price of a virtual currency is an important task for all involved, but it has not yet attracted much attention from researchers. This paper presents user opinions from online forums in a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) setting widely used around the world. We propose a method for predicting the next-day rise and fall of the currency used in an MMOG environment. Based on analysis of online forum users’ opinions, we predict daily fluctuations in the price of a currency used in an MMOG setting. Focusing specifically on the World of Warcraft game, one of the most widely used MMOGs, we demonstrate the feasibility of predicting the fluctuation in value of virtual currencies used in this game community.