ABSTRACT
The conflict that arises between ninja looters and other players can result from disparate feelings of ownership between consumers, or from differences in how individual consumers have integrated the virtual avatar and social media product into their own self-identity and preferred space. While cyberbullying has gained widespread attention, other forms of consumer-to-consumer conflict have arisen as a result of the psychological ownership of virtual or social media products. Both collective and contested ownership within social media platforms provide fertile ground for negative consumer behavior, the ‘dark side’ of psychological ownership. Trolls, ninja looters, and cheaters are just a few examples of the types of negative behaviors that regularly occur in social media contexts. For example, firms have developed formal anti-cheat systems that specifically identify cheaters and implement both temporary and permanent bans from product use for those who consistently employ cheats. Responses from “non-cheaters” can vary from confusion, to frustration, to attacks against the firm.
