Social Capital and Online Games

We use data from an online game economy and econometric matching methods to test whether social capital of players has an impact on game success. Membership in a “clan”, a voluntary organisation of players, positively impacts game success. Hence, social capital has a positive effect on outcomes. Yet, top performers do not gain from access to this social capital. JEL Classification: A13, C99, D10, D12 ∗Address: Universität Wien, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Brünner Strasse 72, A-1210 Wien, Austria. Email: [email protected] †I would like to thank Oliver Fabel and Christian Hopp for helpful comments. The original marketplace data from which the players were chosen was part of an earlier research project together with Aaron Lowen of Grand Valley State University. Two KoL players were invaluable for kindly giving me access to their player data. Chris Maloof was very helpful in providing access to his koldb data, and Fryguy for granting access to the DCdb data.