dmitri.usc@gmail.com
_Recent Publications
Harrison, A, Jones, S., Consalvo, M. & Williams, D. (2025, in press). The Virtual Census 2.0: A Continued Investigation on the Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Videogames. New Media & Society. | forthcoming |
Yang, A. & Williams, D. (2025, in press). Striking while the iron is hot: Exploring the impact of issue ownership and issue salience on donations to political organizations in the 2020 US Presidential Election. International Journal of Press/Politics. | |
Liu, M., Sun, Q. & Williams, D.(2024). With great power comes great accountability: Network positions, victimization, perpetration, and victim-perpetrator overlap in an online multiplayer game. New Media & Society. | |
Liu, M., Tang, J. & Williams, D. (2025, in press). Sympathy for the Devil: Serial Mediation Models for Toxicity, Community and Retention. Media and Communication. | |
Yang, A. & Williams, D. (2024). Quantified Networked Influence: How Much do Disinformation Spreaders’ Networks Drive Their Public Engagement? Social Media + Society. | |
Williams, D., Liu, M., Choi, S., Bowman, N. & Shaikh, S. (2024). Playing Through the Pandemic: Gaming Usage as a Buffer During COVID-19. Games and Culture. | |
Williams, D., Choi, S., Sparks, P. & Hong, J (2023). The Value of Time Together: Mentors, Proteges and a Longitudinal Online Test. Internet Research. | |
Williams, D., Khan, E., Pathak, N. & Srivastava, J. (2022). Social Value: A Computational Model for Measuring Influence on Purchases and Actions for Individuals and Systems. Journal of Advertising. |
_Recent Press
- USC PR feature on my work (March 2025)
- Webinar (YouTube) (May 2024) on Social Value with the International Social Capital Association
- KQED (March 19, 2024). Game Developers Gather in SF as Industry Reels From Mass Layoffs
- Marketplace (July 24, 2023). Radio: What video games can teach us about economics. Video: Skin in the Game, Ep. 4.
- LA Business Journal (May 9, 2023). Back In The Game
- LIFEWIRE (July 22, 2022). New Apple Patent Could Mean Lasers in Your Next Phone
- NPR (March 8, 2021). lllinois Video Game Ban Bill Faces Uphill Legal, Scientific Battles
- SPARTIE LAB PODCAST (February 4, 2021) Game Studies: Past, Present and Future
- LIFEWIRE (February 4, 2021) Why Google Stadia Failed to Load
- AA.COM (Jan. 20, 2021) Game Industry Gains Momentum During Covid-19 breakout (Turkish)
- WIRED (December 9, 2020) Toxicity in Gaming is Dangerous
- LA Times (June 23, 2020) You could use a hug. Here are some safe options
- TechCrunch (June 21, 2020) Confronting racial bias in video games
- Barron’s (May 13, 2020). In Pandemic Times, All The Gaming World’s A (Concert) Stage
- Washington Post (April 9, 2020). World of Warcraft experienced a pandemic in 2005. That experience may help coronavirus researchers.
- NPR (March 30, 2020). Video games attract millions of players as the world “shelters in place”
_Prospective Students
Am I taking students? Generally, yes, but the supply and demand at play stops me from being overtly encouraging. Each year I get about 30-40 inquiries for maybe one spot (it varies year to year). Most students come interested in game-based research, but of late I have been focusing more on the Social Value work, sometimes using game data but sometimes using data from retail, ecommerce and even charitable donations. The best fits are usually students with strong quant skills, though I would also welcome qualitative students who share my goals and can complement the quant work with deeper insights and methods.
Here is my general advice for anyone seeking a PhD, with me or elsewhere.
_Consulting
I provide consulting services to firms seeking to manage their data and gain insights into their customer’s behavior, including satisfaction, interactions, subscriptions and microtransactions. I specialize in understanding consumer-to-consumer influence.
Most of this work is with video game developers managing game populations and seeking to improve the player experience, but I also work with ecommerce, retail, donation, and streaming services.