Context Of Online Games Research Articles

Global Trends in Virtual Luxury: Examining Avatar Identification, Virtual Materialism, and Status Consumption in Online Gaming

Despite the global increase in online gaming with luxury fashion items, gamers’ purchases of these items in virtual environments remain understudied. Utilizing the diffusion of innovation theory, the research analyzes data from 268 Fortnite gamers in Fiji to understand the influence of avatar identification, materialism, and status consumption on purchasing in-game luxury fashion items. The study confirms positive relationships between relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and in-game luxury avatar identification by employing covariance-based structural equation modeling. It also highlights how materialism and status consumption drive the intention to purchase luxury items in-game, with gamer competence reinforcing the association between avatar identification and purchase intention. The findings offer a deeper theoretical understanding of luxury fashion consumption within the context of online gaming, a rapidly growing global phenomenon. The study provides fresh insights into luxury fashion consumption in online gaming, highlighting the applicability of diffusion of innovation theory across cultures and the changing perception of luxury in virtual spaces. Its findings are valuable for game developers, marketers, and luxury brands in developing and marketing in-game luxury items to a worldwide audience. This study enriches international marketing and digital consumer behavior literature and offers strategic directions for global digital gaming marketing.

Online gaming and language aggression in a Tunisian Arabic context

Abstract This paper intends to examine the development of conflictual interactions, how they might be resolved, and the socio-cultural norms involved, by adopting an analytical framework in an online gaming context. The current paper was inspired by Kádár and Haugh’s framework as it enables me to investigate both the macro and micro aspects of (im)politeness. The study’s aim is to further examine how impoliteness, language aggression and conflict are realised in two online gaming platforms, namely Fortnite and PUBG Mobile. Thus, I will explore discursively how these phenomena are subjective in a Tunisian Arabic setting and discuss how participants reach their subjective perception of conflict in ways that do not always correspond to the supposed intentions of the ostensible offender. The results indicate that conflict is subjective as it is evaluated in different ways by different gamers and could be a result of a conflictual intention. The findings also reveal that conflict may also be created/ escalated as a result of a non-conflictual intention. Thus, this paper contributes to understanding of conflict, how impoliteness can lead to conflict and the various aspects of impoliteness/the perception of impoliteness.

Tomorrow will be better: Gamers’ expectation and game usage

Online games generate enormous revenues for game makers, but game makers encounter the difficulty in ensuring that in-game tasks are sufficiently challenging to elicit achievement satisfaction from gamers, while not excessively challenging to elevate frustration. To address this problem, we applied expectancy-value theory (EVT) to the online gaming context. Specifically, our study aims to examine how gaming frustration, gamers' need for achievement, and the expectation of gaming advancement jointly shape in-game achievement satisfaction and, by extension, increase actual game usage. To test our model, we collected survey and behavioral data from 848 participants, thus generating a two-wave, and two-source dataset. We found that gamers’ evaluations of success probability (expectation of gaming advancement) prominently determined their expected value (in-game achievement satisfaction), thus enhancing their continued use, use frequency, and actual usage. Whereas traditional EVT assumes a single and stable probability of achievement with regard to an event, we argue that perceptions of the probability of gaming achievements in the immediate future (now) differ from perceptions of such achievements in the more distant future, with the latter being more influential. By contextualizing EVT, we offer guidance to game makers who aim to keep users engaged, suggesting that they should design challenging in-game tasks that also elicit the hope of future gaming achievements, resulting in continued use, use frequency, and sustained gameplay. We conclude by offering insights for the makers of online games.

Práxis de consumo: um estudo sobre a busca da libertação da opressão de gênero no contexto dos jogos on-line

Abstract The article theorizes how women face the gender oppression present in consumption. Using data from the context of online games in Brazil collected through 15 in-depth interviews and netnography, we introduce the concept of consumer praxis, defined as a reflective action that seeks liberation of the oppressed and is performed in consumer environments that reinforce the subordination of the other. The results reveal that women seek liberation through dialogical action in the face of gender oppression, mobilization, and market occupation. The research advances in the cultural studies of consumption, demonstrating how a consumption practice can help in the search for liberation from the oppressive relations existing in our society.

Understanding continuance intention to play online games: roles of self-expressiveness, self-congruity, self-efficacy, and perceived risk

ABSTRACT The current study investigates the motivation to explore the expansive possibilities online games provide for identity development, in addition to the widely studied gaming consumption value motivations. This study develops an integrated framework from the perspective of the identity, self-congruity, self-efficacy, and consumption value theories for a holistic appreciation of online gaming motivations. Data were collected from active online gamers and structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that self-expressiveness positively influences continued intentions to play games and, in turn, is impacted by self-congruity. Self-efficacy is also found to impact users’ continuance intention for online games. Further, the results re-affirm the importance of hedonic (perceived enjoyment) and utilitarian (perceived usefulness) consumption values on gamers’ continuance intentions in an online gaming context. Through multi-group analysis, this study also highlights the influence of perceived risk in shaping the continuance intentions. Findings suggest that the impact of perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, self-expressiveness, and self-congruity on continuance intention is enhanced in the presence of high risk; the reverse holds true for self-efficacy. The key practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Effect of nature of the game on ad-persuasion in online gaming context

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of nature of advergame and moderating roles of game-product congruence and need for cognition (NFC) on gamers’ ad-persuasion from attention and elaboration perspectives.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (nature of game: fast or slow)×2 (game-product congruence: high or low)×2 (NFC: high or low) between measures design is used. In total, 224 graduate students participated in the study. A 2×2×2 between subjects ANOVA is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that slow-paced advergames result in high persuasion than fast-paced advergames. A 2 way-interaction indicates that for a slow-paced advergame, low game-product congruence result in high persuasion than in high game-product congruence. Furthermore, findings reveal that for a slow-paced advergame with low game-product congruence, subjects with high NFC report high persuasion than subjects with low NFC. For a fast-paced advergame with low game-product congruence, subjects with high NFC report high persuasion than subjects with low NFC.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study are very important for advertising practitioners as selection of media that fit the advertised product with reference to the content of the media is a planning strategy that has been widely used by media planners. Thus, if high brand recall and recognition is the primary goal for advertisers, then, slow-paced advergames with low-congruent brand placements can be considered a better media strategy for in-game advertising. Furthermore, advertising managers can design advergames by taking into account NFC factor to make sure that the implementation has the strongest positive effect on consumers’ persuasion. Furthermore, advertising managers can design advergames by taking into account NFC factor to make sure that the implementation has the strongest positive effect on consumers’ persuasion.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature of non-traditional online advertising, specifically advergaming context by exploring the impact of nature of game and game-product congruence on gamers’ ad-persuasion. Also, this study is the first attempt toward understanding the moderating role of NFC on gamers’ ad-persuasion in the context of online advertising.

The Danger of Engagement: Behavioral Observations of Online Community Activity and Service Spending in the Online Gaming Context

ABSTRACTResearch indicates that customer engagement in online communities has positive effects on related businesses, and that, on an aggregated level, community activity and service spending are positively related. Therefore, marketing efforts tend to focus on promoting the community activity of customers. However, aggregates might not properly reflect processes at the individual level. We argue that in contexts in which both service consumption and community activity deplete resources, the latter might actually substitute for the former. Substitution effects can emerge from reveling: customers partly satisfy their need for a service by habituating to it during engagement in communities without actually consuming it. The present study reports empirical evidence of the so-called reveling effect in the online gaming context and suggests that theories motivating a positive relationship between engagement and service spending are oversimplified; for the relatively inactive community members an increase in engagement leads to increased spending, but for the already active members increasing engagement decreases spending. For marketers, it is important to know that increases in engagement might not lead to increased spending for the already engaged individual.

Why do not satisfied consumers show reuse behavior? The context of online games

Empirical studies have consistently identified consumer satisfaction as a key antecedent to reuse behavior. Business has focused on consumer satisfaction as a way to improve consumer loyalty. However, it remains unknown why there are so many satisfied consumers who do not show reuse behavior. Therefore, the present study examined the potential factors moderating the association between consumer satisfaction and reuse behavior. A literature review and focus groups were used to explore moderating variables, and hierarchical regression analysis was used to test their influence. Results from a study of 490 online gamers in Taiwan showed that the relationship between consumer satisfaction and reuse behavior is contingent upon the moderating effects of customer involvement and perceived specific/upgrading activities. In particular, the relationship between consumer satisfaction and reuse behavior is more sensitive when customer involvement is lower.

Associations Between Personality Traits and Experiential Gratification in an Online Gaming Context

We explored how personality traits are associated with experiential gratification in an online gaming context by applying Pine and Gilmore's (1998) experience economy framework. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis validated the hypothesis that the experience economy framework would be a reliable and valid construct in measuring online gamers' sense of experiential gratification. Furthermore, a regression analysis substantiated the influence of personality traits on the experiential gratification of online game players.

Why would online gamers share their innovation-conducive knowledge in the online game user community? Integrating individual motivations and social capital perspectives

The user community has been an important external source of a firm’s product or service innovation. Users’ innovation-conducive knowledge sharing enables the community to work as a vital source of innovation. But, traditional economic theories of innovation seem to provide few explanations about why such knowledge sharing takes place for free in the user community. Therefore, this study investigates what drives community users to freely share their innovation-conducive knowledge, using the theory of planned behavior. Based on an empirical analysis of the data from 1244 members of a South Korean online game user community, it reveals that intrinsic motivation, shared goals, and social trust are salient factors in promoting users’ innovation-conducive knowledge sharing. Extrinsic motivation and social tie, however, were found to affect such sharing adversely, contingent upon whether a user is an innovator or a non-innovator. The study illustrates how social capital, in addition to individual motivations, forms and influences users’ innovation-conducive knowledge sharing in the online gaming context.