Research on the IP Operation Model Relying on the Player CommunityTake SEGA as an Example

Now, digitalization and entertainment industries are highly integrated. The value of IP is becoming increasingly prominent. With the rapid expansion of the global digital entertainment market, IP has become the core competitiveness of the game industry. As an important carrier of the IP ecosystem, the player community's spontaneous dissemination and secondary creation behaviors have significantly extended the life cycle of IP. Player community plays an important component of the game IP operation.This study takes SEGA (Japan) as the research object, and through collecting behavioral data from the player communities of project SEKAI, P5X, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Yakuza, reveals the important role of player communities in IP operations.Based on these data, the study proposes a 3C model. That means an IP co-construction operation model driven by official content, amplified by the community, and co-created by users. The Content-Community-Co-creation (3C) model proposed in this study not only provides a practical framework for game companies to optimize IP operation, but also reveals how user participatory culture promotes the evolution of IP from a single product to a multi-dimensional ecosystem, offering significant implications for the business model innovation of the cultural industry in the digital age.