關於網路外部性下電玩產業之競爭與著作權保護

本論文的主旨為探討存在著網路外部性之電玩產業市場中，所存在的三個問題。第一，當消費者對於電玩軟體多樣性之需求提高時，對於電玩產業中硬體(遊戲主機)之競爭會帶來什麼樣的影響。第二，由於電玩主機之間並沒有相容性，此時在什麼樣的條件下，消費者會選擇更換硬體。第三，網路外部性下的軟體市場中，軟體企業是否該採取防止盜版之措施，抑或利用網路外部性提高使用者數量以增加自家商品之價值。本論文使用Oz Shy(2001)之經濟模型進行探討與分析。在第三章第三節的計算中發現，當硬體市場為複占時，消費者對於電玩軟體多樣性之需求越高，電玩硬體企業之價格與利潤均會減少。其原因在於硬體競爭市場中並不存在Nash Equilibrium，取而代之的是Undercut-Proof equilibrium(UPE)，在這均衡點中，硬體企業為了增加軟體企業對自家硬體之供給量，必須擴大自家硬體之市場規模而進行削價競爭，導致此一結果。在第三章第二節中，分析出消費者更換硬體的條件有三：第一，當更換硬體之價格低於原本使用之硬體價格。第二，當更換之硬體可使用的軟體數量比原硬體多時。第三，當兩硬體間之差異化縮小時。在第四章中，將市場中軟體使用者分為看重購買正版軟體時所獲得之支援的使用者(Type O)與不看重之使用者(Type I)進行分析。在命題4.2中得到以下結論：當Type O之消費者對於購買正版軟體所能獲得的支援越重視，即使軟體企業不進行防盜版的保護，仍能獲得比保護時較高之利潤。其原因在於，當軟體沒有保護措施時，市場中的軟體是用者數目相對增加，在網路外部性之作用下，消費者剩餘提高，相對的軟體的價值也會提高。

關鍵字

網路外部性；軟體多樣性；更換硬體；降價均衡；著作權保護

並列摘要

The purpose of this thesis is to analyses three questions in game industry where exists network externality. One, when consumers place a high value for the variety of game software, what variation will occurs in hardware competition? Two, in game industry, hardware is incompatible with another hardware. In this case, consumers what will encourage consumers to change their hardware? Three, should software gain their profits by installing device to protect their software, or choose not to protect thesoftware but gain the value of software by internet externality? This thesis used the economies model by Oz Shy(2001) to analyse. In chapter 3, we discovered that when consumers place a high value for the variety of game software, the hardware’s price and profits will decrease. Same in the Chapter 3, we found three reason that will attract consumers to change their hardware. First, when the hardware’s price is lower than another hardware which the consumer used. Second, when the variety of software for the hardware is more than the hardware that consumer used. Third, when the differentiation between hardware decrease. In chapter 4, we defined that there are two types of software users. The users who gain an extra utility form services by software firms(Type O), and the users who does not mind the service form software firms(Type I). In the analysis, we found that when the Type O users place a high value for the service form software firms, no copy protection yields a higher profit than copy protection. Because in the case of no copy protection, the number of users will increase and the value of software wil increase.