Graduate students at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) have attracted attention by designing a rational item-pricing system to promote healthier enjoyment of online games.

Graduate students in the College of Engineering's Department of Computer Engineering, Seong-ho Kim and Shin-woong Kim (advisors: Yong-sung Kim and O-bong Kwon), recently presented a paper titled 'Design of an MMORPG Item Pricing System Based on a Collective Intelligence Model' at the Winter Conference hosted by the Korean Computer Game Society and received the Outstanding Paper Award.

Their research is based on the observation that many game users share their experiences about games and items online. The main focus is to classify users' chat messages using a collective intelligence model and to design a rational item-pricing system.

First, they collect game item-related content from unspecified users enjoying the game via a multi-user chat system. They then classify item-related terms based on the collective intelligence model and create a weighted table for the item list.

The resulting weighted table is stored as an ontology (a type of dictionary that defines terms and the relationships between them within a specific knowledge domain). They also develop a ranking system to recommend appropriate items to users.

Seong-ho Kim, who conducted the research, said, "The rapid growth of online games has provided a good opportunity for constructive leisure, but it has also produced negative outcomes such as game addiction and crimes arising from unfair item transactions. Through this research, we expect to alleviate some of the negative effects, such as unfair trading of game items and related crimes."