The Effect of Use, Overuse, and Appeal of Mobile Game App on Add-Ons Purchases and Players Recruitment

Abstract

Even though the mobile games industry has grown substantially over the last few years, one permanent challenge which remains is to monetize it and to continue reaching new players. Current players contribute to this aim by purchasing mobile game accessories and by recruiting players. The current work analyses how the present use of the game and its appeal contribute to these behaviors. Results with information obtained from a sample of app gamers show that using a game app can have positive effects on recruitment, a notion reinforced when the level of performance rises, while overuse of the game app may lead to a feeling of addiction or shame that reduces new player recruitment. In addition, the game's perceived appeal (experiential value, procedural justice, and prestige) are also related with investing in new products and with recruitment.

The impact of social network embeddedness on mobile massively multiplayer online games play

“…Playing to win is considered as the primary orientation for players, who enjoy the process of defeating others or ‘winning’ the game combat (Kaye & Pennington, 2016; Wang, Sun, & Luo, 2022). Play performance is regarded as the proxy for the quality of player participation (Camarero et al, 2021; Wang et al, 2023). Players who experience low‐gameplay quality because of poor game skills, distraction during playing the game, and lack of cooperation between teammates, which leads to poor game performance.…”

“…To improve player socialisation experience, game operators have taken numerous measures, such as enriching in‐game social roles and relationships including mentoring and couple relationships (Liu, 2019); optimising communication tools including sending voice messages and refining chat channels (Meng et al, 2015). However, the social ties with other players in the virtual game world are often fragile (Camarero et al, 2021; Ducheneaut et al, 2006), especially when players change their avatar names or stop playing for a period of time.…”

Gamers' Reasons for Purchasing Gaming Virtual Products: A Systematic Review

“…Competitive environments such as ranking, reputation, win rate and fairness within the game force players to spend to secure their position in the game (Camarero et al, 2021;Gawron & Strzelecki, 2021;Prakosa & Sumantika, 2022). Secondly, price, promotional efforts, bundles (where the user receives a boost in virtual currency per dollar), and limited-time offers entice consumers to make impulse purchases with the aim of enticing users to make larger purchases and maximize the 'value' they receive for their money, aiming to maximize the expected regret of missing out on a deal in order to induce irrational consumption (Jang & Chung, 2021;Salehudin & Alpert, 2022a, 2022bSharma et al, 2021).…”

De consumidores a prosumidores: la narrativa transmedia en dos juegos móviles para adolescentes y jóvenes

“…Según el reporte de SuperData (2020), la industria de los juegos y medios interactivos tuvo un crecimiento de 12% en 2020, donde los juegos digitales generaron $126.6B de los cuales, $73.8B corresponden a los juegos móviles. Dado el alto impacto que tienen los videojuegos en la sociedad (Michaud, 2018) existen numerosos estudios que han explorado los juegos en línea y las características del jugador (Yoon et al, 2013;Badrinarayanan et al, 2015;Camarero et al, 2021), los elementos del juego (Chang, 2013;Badrinarayanan et al, 2015), así como participación de los jugadores en comunidades (Badrinarayanan et al, 2014).…”

“…En el mundo de los videojuegos, los juegos móviles son consumidos en alto porcentaje (Camarero et al, 2021;SuperData, 2020), y tal como señalan Hjorth y Richardson (2017), se encuentran situados en la vida cotidiana del individuo y poseen características de manejo y disponibilidad superiores a las consolas (pp. 4-6).…”