Knowledge Management Research (지식경영연구)

The Knowledge Management Society of Korea (한국지식경영학회)
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An Empirical Study on the Under-reporting Bias of Online Reviewers: Focusing on Steam Online Game Platform

온라인 리뷰어의 과소보고 편향에 관한 실증 연구: 온라인 게임 플랫폼 스팀을 중심으로

  • Received : 2022.04.15
  • Accepted : 2022.06.16
  • Published : 2022.06.30
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Abstract

Online reviews are useful for other consumers to make reasonable purchase decisions by providing previous buyers' experiences. However, when online reviewers are biased, online reviews do not accurately reflect the true quality of the product. Therefore, we investigated the characteristics of reviewers with underreporting bias to cope with the problem of declining reliability of online reviews. In this context, this study attempted to examine the characteristics of reviewers with underreporting bias using 14,165 reviews of Steam, an online game platform. As a result of the analysis, reviewers with underreporting bias mainly write reviews positively, write reviews within a short period from the game release date, but tend to write reviews after playing games for longer time, and write reviews when purchasing high-priced games. Since this study has explored the characteristics of reviewers showing underreporting bias, it will be meaningful as a basic study to cope with the problem caused by underreporting bias.

온라인 리뷰는 제품에 대한 이전 구매자들의 경험을 제공함으로써 다른 소비자들이 합리적인 구매 의사결정을 하는데 유용하게 활용되고 있다. 하지만 온라인 리뷰가 제품의 질과 특성을 정확히 반영하지 않고 편향되어 작성된다면 온라인 리뷰를 더이상 신뢰할 수 없는 문제가 발생한다. 따라서, 본 연구에서는 대표적인 온라인 리뷰의 편향 중 하나인 과소보고 편향의 특성을 실증 데이터를 통해 살펴보고자 한다. 구체적으로 온라인 게임 플랫폼인 스팀의 14,165개의 리뷰 데이터를 활용하여 과소보고하는 성향을 지니는 리뷰어의 특성을 살펴보고자 하였다. 분석결과, 과소보고하는 리뷰어는 주로 추천 의도를 담은 리뷰를 작성하고, 게임 출시일로부터 짧은 기간 안에 리뷰를 작성하나 다소 긴 시간동안 게임을 플레이한 후 리뷰를 작성하는 경향이 있으며, 높은 가격의 게임을 구매했을 때 리뷰를 작성하는 경향을 보였다. 본 연구는 과소보고하는 리뷰어의 특성을 탐색적으로 살펴보았기에 과소보고 편향에 대한 이해를 확장시키는 기초 연구로서 의미를 지닐 것이다.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

본 연구는 고려대학교 미디어학부 특별연구비 지원을 받아 수행되었음. 또한 2019년 대한민국 교육부와 한국연구재단의 지원을 받아 수행된 연구이며(NRF-2019S1A3A2099973), 과학기술정보통신부 및 정보통신기획평가원의 대학ICT연구센터지원사업의 연구결과로 수행되었음(IITP-2020-0-01749).

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