Consumer behavior of electronic games' players: a study on the intentions to play and to pay

Abstract The electronic games market is one of the most profitable in the leisure segment, having surpassed the film industry. In terms of profitability, it is ranked as eleventh in the world and first in Latin America. Despite its relevance, there is little information about the reasons that lead consumers to play. This paper examined which attributes of the games influence consumers to play and pay for them. The methodology was a field research survey conducted with 600 electronic games' players, and structural equation modeling was used to test the model. The results indicate that the constructs challenge, diversion, fun, fantasy and social interaction influence the intention to play and pay for games, while the construct competition has a negative effect on the intention to play. No significant causalities were found, regarding the constructs time flexibility and arousal, on the intention to play. Furthermore, we also observed that motivations that had the highest impact were fun, challenge and fantasy, attributes that should be considered by game developers and industry.

摘要 电子游戏市场是休闲娱乐领域中盈利能力最强的市场之一，其规模已超越电影行业。就盈利能力而言，该市场位列全球第十一，在拉丁美洲则位居首位。尽管该市场极具影响力，但目前针对驱动消费者进行游戏的动因的相关研究仍较为匮乏。本研究旨在探究影响消费者游玩游戏并付费购买游戏的游戏属性。研究采用针对600名电子游戏玩家的实地调研法，并运用结构方程模型（Structural Equation Modeling）对研究模型进行检验。结果显示，挑战、消遣、乐趣、幻想、社交互动这几个构念均会正向影响消费者的游戏游玩与付费意愿，而竞争构念则对游戏游玩意愿产生负向影响。未发现时间灵活性与唤醒度这两个构念对游戏游玩意愿存在显著因果效应。此外，本研究还观察到，对消费者游戏游玩与付费意愿影响最大的动机为乐趣、挑战与幻想，这些属性值得游戏开发商与行业从业者重点关注。