Abstract—The life and evolution of a social group – its birth,
growth, decline, and possible demise – have long been the focus of
social science research. The birth and the early growth patterns
of social groups, in particular, have been studied relatively little
because of the lack of detailed data that describe the trajectories
of groups during their early lives. In this paper, we report the
major factors that govern the early dynamics of the evolution
of social groups that are found in the complete data about user
behaviors and activities for ArcheAge, a large-scale Massively
Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). We find
that in the early stages of a game where uncertainties prevail
regarding the stability of a group, prospects for benefit are the
more imp