Factors affecting consumer loyalty in role-playing and life-simulation video games
Consideration of the main factors influencing consumer loyalty in role-playing games and video games that simulate life. General characteristics and features of the conceptual model of online games loyalty. Acquaintance with modern gaming technologies.
| Рубрика | Менеджмент и трудовые отношения |
| Вид | курсовая работа |
| Язык | английский |
| Дата добавления | 26.08.2020 |
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Factors affecting consumer loyalty in role-playing and life-simulation video games
Melnikova P. S.
Abstract
Due to the amassed availability of personal computer systems and growing popularity of online video games, both practitioners and researchers have drawn their focus on understanding consumer online behavior. Although several studies have looked at key factors that lead to customer loyalty, the disparities between those factors for different game genres remains unexplored. Thus, this study aims to identify and contrast the critical factors for customer loyalty for two game genres, life-simulation and role-playing games. To achieve that goal, this study empirically tests the theoretical model of determinants of game loyalty through performing structural equation modeling analysis for two types of games. The stated research hypotheses are tested by using the primary data obtained from two survey questionnaires, that were shared among game communities and social networks. Overall, the results indicate the following: 1) The most important predictors of customer loyalty for RPGs are social norms, intention to play and online game communities are, whereas for LSG the only significant effect is social norms and intention to play; 2) Game enjoyment and social norms have positive impact on intention to play both examined game genres; 3) Game enjoyment have important indirect effect on game loyalty for both genres; 4) Game technology factors significantly influence game enjoyment of both game genres.
Introduction
gaming simulate life
Due to the amassed availability of personal computer systems and growing popularity of online video games, both practitioners and researchers have drawn their focus on understanding consumer online behavior. Although several studies have looked at key factors that lead to customer loyalty, the disparities between those factors for different game genres remains unexplored. Thus, this study aims to identify and contrast the critical factors for customer loyalty for two game genres, life-simulation and role-playing games. To achieve that goal, this study empirically tests the theoretical model of determinants of game loyalty through performing structural equation modeling analysis for two types of games. The stated research hypotheses are tested by using the primary data obtained from two survey questionnaires, that were shared among game communities and social networks. Overall, the results indicate the following: 1) The most important predictors of customer loyalty for RPGs are social norms, intention to play and online game communities are, whereas for LSG the only significant effect is social norms and intention to play; 2) Game enjoyment and social norms have positive impact on intention to play both examined game genres; 3) Game enjoyment have important indirect effect on game loyalty for both genres; 4) Game technology factors significantly influence game enjoyment of both game genres.
Due to the global technological development and wide adoption of private computer systems, the market share of online gaming has plummeted in a subtle way over the past decade. As one of the fastest growing technology markets, the gaming industry is projected to generate revenues of over $180.1 billion in the next year, presenting 11 percent annual growth rate (Newzoo, 2019). Likewise, the number of gamers in the world is likely to increase to 2.7 billion people by 2021, representing almost one third of the entire population (Gough, 2019).
Resembling with such enormous demand within this market, customer behavior analysis has become vital for developers and stakeholders alike. Many researchers have contributed to the investigation of factors that affect players' loyalty towards the games in order to increase consumer retention and overall playtime. Some studies have demonstrated that average in-game player retention lasts 8-18 months, raising the total expense of attracting new customers and game maintenance, while reducing the company's earnings ( Lo & Shiou-Hung Chen, 2008; Semeijn et al., 2005). As a consequence, it has become crucial to find and investigate the decisive factors of online games and their surroundings that affect customer loyalty in online video games.
Although there is more than enough research examining the factors affecting customer loyalty overall in the gaming industry, there is lack of comprehensive analysis of different game genres in regard to game loyalty. However, several studies indicate that assessing game loyalty from a particular game genre viewpoint could provide more relevant results (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Teng & Chen, 2014). As every game genre has different qualities that define its genre (Rollings & Adams, 2003), this study proposes that for each type of game, every factor's level of impact on customer loyalty may differ. That being said, life-simulation games (LSG) are associated with the least explored are of the game genres. LSGs, alongside with role-playing games (RPG), combine the top ten most popular game genres (Technavio, 2018). The most well-known examples of role-playing games are World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, Fallout, Divinity etc. The list of life-simulators includes The Sims, SimCity, Spore, Planet Zoo etc.
This study is concentrated on RPG and LSG specifically for three reasons. First, these genres are two of the most popular game genres, as mentioned before. Second, life-simulators have not been explored by any literature, whereas role-playing games has been extensively examined. Thus, contrasting two genres, one of which has been successfully studied previously in regard to game loyalty, may lead to more applicable results as it is also possible to compare the findings of this study to those of the previous research. Third, RPG and LSG have common characteristics as well as major variations which may contribute to the main thesis of this study: the level of influence that each factor has on customer loyalty may differ for the games with different game qualities.
The gameplay features of role-playing games and life-simulators are very resembling: the objective of a player is to take on a role and follow the game story to accomplish in-game objectives, earn bonuses and receive rewards. For role-playing games, the emphasis is on character development and interaction with other players, whereas for life-simulation games that goal is transferred towards “building” the world around your character. Hence RPGs prioritize in-game social interaction, whereas LSGs are mainly individual games (Rollings & Adams, 2003). Giving the presented disparities and resemblances between the two types of games, the factors that would affect online game loyalty for RPG and LSG are believed to vary in certain ways. Therefore, this study analyzes two of the most popular game genres, role-playing and life-simulation games, with the aim to determine and contrast the definitive factors that contribute to customer loyalty.
This research has an intention to contribute to further empirical understanding of consumer behavior. This theoretical contribution can be achieved by providing the results of the study as evidence that role-playing and life-simulation games have dissimilarities in the key factors affecting players loyalty. Furthermore, the practical importance of this research can be accomplished if the results are shown to game developing companies, vendors and marketing departments, so that they further understand their customers and improve total consumer retention.
The foremost research objective is to identify the factors that impact online game loyalty and investigate how do they differ for role-playing and life-simulation games. This goal can be reached by examining available literature, establishing theoretical foundation, determining methodology of the research and empirically testing a theoretical model proposed by the previous studies.
For the purpose of achieving the aforementioned goal, the following research question was established: Which factors contribute to online game loyalty for role-playing and life-simulation games?
For the purpose of answering established research question, the succeeding tasks have been designed to be performed:
a) Determine the theoretical constructs for the factors affecting customer loyalty within which the research will be conducted;
b) Develop methodology providing measurement levels for aforementioned constructs and estimation of the level of impact that these factors have on online game loyalty;
c) Collect and process primary data regarding role-playing and life-simulation games;
d) Estimate the level of impact of the factors on online game loyalty and explain the results;
e) Based on the results, compare them with respect to life-simulation game and role-playing game, and establish those factors that have different level of impact for these types of games;
f) Compare the findings with the prior research and develop a list of crucial factors for online game loyalty of role-playing games and simulators, providing both practical and theoretical contribution of the research.
Subsequently, the present study is designed with respect to the ensuing plan: the introduction to the study is then followed by the first part, which settles the theoretical foundation of the study and provides literature review of the problem, as well as the theoretical background of the constructs involved in the analysis; the next part considers the research statement of the thesis; the third section establishes the research design and the methodology, supplemented by description of collected datasets; the fourth part discloses the findings of the research, whereas the fifth part discusses the results of the analysis of two games, makes a comparison between them and with the previous findings. The final section is dedicated to conclusion, followed by the list of references and appendices displayed at the end of the paper.
To conclude, the current study has both theoretical and practical significance. From an academic point of view, this research fills in the gap in the study of human behavior and customer loyalty. From a managerial perspective, this study provides an understanding why players stick to a certain game for longer and indicates the factors that managers in the gaming industry should take into account in order to increase consumer retention and drive sales.
1. Theoretical foundation
The theoretical foundation part introduces the review of the key concepts of the study such as customer loyalty and consumer behavior. In addition, it establishes and discusses the theoretical model that the current study implements for answering the research question. Hence this chapter contains several parts. First two subsections are dedicated to the concepts of customer loyalty and the behavioral theories that underline it. The third subsection determines the theoretical model. Eventually, subsections 4-7 provide the definition of the theoretical constructs involved in the analysis.
1.1 Customer loyalty in online games
Customer loyalty is a competitive priority for many businesses because it creates expense reductions, enhanced brand recognition and some other advantages (Duffy, 2003). Hence any company's marketing activities usually include the evolvement or maintenance of customer loyalty. Revenue streams for online game vendors typically include three main channels: monthly (annual) subscriptions for the network connection, software license charge and microtransactions (i.e. virtual property) (Hsi?Peng Lu & Wang, 2008). The example of subscription fees as a revenue stream is Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which players can subscribe to either monthly, quarterly or annually. The alternative of subscription plan is one-time bill for software license, widely adopted by many game developers, such as Electronic Arts (The Sims). The way of making money through virtual property, such as virtual gear, clothes and pets, is rather controversial since it has provoked an increase in virtual crimes and is considered as an unethical practice (Chen et al., 2005). However, many companies like Blizzard, generate more than 50% of their profits from in-game purchases and microtransactions (PCgamer, 2018). Undoubtedly, maintaining customers' interest and loyalty towards a game is essential for the positive numbers in a company's annual report, so both retail and production sides are trying to hold customers enjoying games longer.
Early studies on customer loyalty adopted a linear view which was focused only on repetitive purchase behavior. For instance, initially loyalty was classified into four categories: undivided loyalty, divided loyalty, unstable loyalty and no loyalty (Brown, 1953). Other researchers regarded loyalty as the probability of product repurchase (Lipstein, 1959; Kuehn, 1962). Concurrently, those approaches lacked such important factor as customer choice and did not differentiate true behavioral loyalty and induced loyalty (Jacoby & Chestnut, 1978). The latter occurs when a customer is compelled to choose a particular store or brand due to the lack of choice associated with convenient location or price range, for example.
As a response to this debate, scholars have proposed to conceptualize customer loyalty as a combination of behavioral, attitudinal and cognitive aspects (Anderson & Srinivasan, 2003; Drake et al., 1998). The behavioral dimension of loyalty refers to the re-purchase level that a customer actually displays, and the attitudinal aspect is associated with the consumers' preference for a particular product, service, or brand which may or may not transfer into purchase behavior due to the various factors (Gremler & Brown, 1996). Cognitive loyalty is associated with the intentions of the customer regarding his or her future purchasing decisions (Drake et al., 1998). The definition of customer loyalty in the gaming context sounds as “the degree to which players have favorable attitude or preference for a specific game and intend to continue playing” (Lu & Wang, 2008, p. 504). Therefore, for present research purpose, loyalty is defined as the customer's favorable attitude towards an online game that leads to continuous usage and repurchase transactions.
The relationship between customer loyalty and various aspects of online games has been extensively examined by many researchers. Game technology, social norms, game community, as well as game enjoyment and intention to play have been addressed in literature as important positive influences on online game loyalty either directly or through mediators. A study of Zhao and Fang (2009) pointed out that technological aspects of online role-playing games, as well as the social environment in which they inhabit, and the gaming community itself have positive effect on customer loyalty. A study made by an American game designer suggested that improving technical aspects of massively multiplayer role-playing games, such as graphics or performance, could contribute to a rise in overall game playing time (Rouse, 1998). Tseng et al. (2015) have identified the importance of social presence and online game community for better player retention while studying the responses from 1467 online gamers of different genres. Along the same line, the studies of Teng and Cheng (2014) and Hsu and Lu (2007) have emphasized online game communities as the driver of customer loyalty for the role-playing games and games of various genres, respectively. Therefore, sociability, technology and game enjoyment can definitely be influential factors for players' loyalty towards online games. However, in order to execute a repetitive purchasing behavior a user needs to formulate positive attitude and intentions towards this behavior. The following section provides a theoretical support for the origins of customer loyalty.
1.2 Behavioral theories
Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is the basis of understanding an individual's behavior and has been widely discussed and used by researchers. The theory of reasoned action claims that a person's behavior is predicted by certain intentions, while intentions are determined by subjective norms and specific attitude that the person holds towards this behavior (Ajzen H & Fishbein, 1980). Even though TRA is a widely accepted theory in social psychology, it cannot be applied to any case since it does not specify factors leading to a person's attitudes and behavior. Thus, for a specific context, such as gaming industry, certain beliefs considering customers' behavior need to be specified. For example, Hsipeng Lu & Lin (2002) indicated that customer attitude to repetitive transaction is explained by belief about brand's content, context and infrastructure. While Hsu and Lu (2007) proposed beliefs about perceived cohesions and perceived enjoyment of the system to be important influential factors of repurchase behavior.
Another commonly used theory is the Technology Acceptance Model, that is derived from TRA and is used to evaluate and model user behavior towards technology (Davis et al., 1989). The main idea of TAM claims that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease-of-use (PEU) are the two beliefs determining the user's attitude towards any technology. Perceived usefulness is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance”, meanwhile PEU is “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (Davis et al., 1989, p. 985). Moreover, both of these beliefs are impacted by external variables, such as system features or circumstantial factors. Technology acceptance model has been applied by a range of studies on e-commerce and information technology (Bajaj & Nidumolu, 1998; P. J. Hu et al., 1999; Liaw & Huang, 2003; Luarn & Lin, 2005; J.-H. Wu & Wang, 2005). However, TAM has been proved to be unsuitable for some researches because of one factor, perceived usefulness, which does not directly affect behavioral intention (Hsu & Lu, 2007). Some studies have contested TAM's validity and utilized alternative behavioral theories such as Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Task-Technology Fit (TTF) (George, 2004; Madden et al., 1992; Riemenschneider et al., 2003). Others prefer to change TAM in order to boost the comprehension of consumer behavior in specific cases, such as gaming industry or online retail (Govender & Sihlali, 2014; Mathieson et al., 2001; Moon & Kim, 2001; Ngai et al., 2007; Zhao & Fang, 2009). The common practice is to insert new variables, such as “trust” or “motivation” for studying acceptance of a video game or other technology (Hsi?Peng Lu & Wang, 2008; Zhao & Fang, 2009).
1.3 Conceptual online game loyalty model
Current study implements the model (Figure 1) proposed by Zhao & Fang (2009), which is used to define the main theoretical constructs and establish the relationships between them. According to this model, the main predictors for game loyalty are social norms, intention to play, and online game community. Important to bear in mind that there are also indirect factors that influence player loyalty, namely game technology and game enjoyment. The model also establishes that technological factors, such as game story, game graphics, game length, perceived ease of use and game services impact game loyalty through two mediators, game enjoyment and intention to play. Likewise, the influence of game enjoyment on game loyalty is caused via intention to play the game.
Consequently, it is crucial to assess not only the factors that affect game loyalty directly but take into account the factors that affect earlier stages of consumer behavior in gaming, such as game enjoyment. Game enjoyment directly impacts intention to play, according to several studies, whereas intention to play has a direct effect on loyalty (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Wu et al., 2008; Zhao & Fang, 2009; Wu & Liu, 2007). Thus, the impact of game enjoyment on game loyalty should be studied, even though this impact is indirect. Likewise, in order to understand the drivers of game loyalty, the factors that affect game enjoyment and intention to play should be taken into consideration.
Figure 1. Conceptual Online Game Loyalty Model
This study implements the aforementioned model as the core theoretical foundation for the following reasons. First, it is an adaptation of TAM and TRA, two well-established theories of consumer behavior, which have been successfully applied to study customer loyalty and are reviewed in the previous section of the study. Behavioral intention to use (i.e., intention to play) and actual system use (i.e., game loyalty) are the adaptations from TAM. Subjective norms (i.e., social norms) as an influential factor of intention to play is derived from TRA.
Second, the conceptual game loyalty model includes the factors that have been previously proved to be important predictors of game loyalty, for example game technology factors and online game community. The following section is meant to establish the theoretical foundation behind each component of the conceptual online game loyalty model.
1.4 Social norms
Social norms and its role in consumer behavior have been discussed extensively by many researchers. The main approach to studying social influences is to divide the notion of social norms in subjective and descriptive norms (Rivis & Sheeran, 2003). On the one hand, subjective norms are opinion of an individual as to whether the closest people (e.g. family, friends, coworkers) will appreciate the individual's behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). On the other hand, descriptive norms refer to the vocal opinion from the surrounding community that determine a person's decision towards a particular action (Rivis & Sheeran, 2003; Titah & Barki, 2009). In other words, what society thinks of the individual affect his actions.
The effect of social subjective norms on technology usage have been thoroughly investigated by various studies (Liker & Sindi, 1997). Theory of reasoned action, discussed before, suggests that subjective norms have a significant effect on one's intentions towards performing an action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). That being said and as followed from the definition of subjective norms, the decision to play and continue playing a video game is highly depends on the opinions of players' friends, family or colleagues towards this action. Thus, some researchers have drawn attention to the significance of those norms in the context of online games. Social standards factor has been pointed out as an essential predictor of intention to play online games (Rouse, 1998; Hsu & Lu, 2007). Furthermore, the presence of social norms in online game communities provides further evidence of importance of social influences for players loyalty. As admitted by Teng & Chen (2014), active social community of players also determine their motivation to participate in the game.
To sum up, whether the person's actions are determined by the society's opinion or by his own motivations, social norms play a pivotal role in the development of customer loyalty for online games. Hence it can be assumed that social norms is an important predictor of online game loyalty. However, an extensive former examination of this topic done by some researchers allows to fully consider this factor as significant for the analysis.
1.5 Game technology
In regard to online video games, the quality of the product (i.e. the game) is very significant aspect that affect product consumption thus impacting not only enjoyment of the product, but intention to purchase and repeatable purchasing as well. For example, a study made by an American game designer suggested that improving technical aspects of games, such as graphics or game performance, could contribute to increased overall game playing time (Rouse, 1998). More specifically, this idea of technical development in order to improve customer retention has previously been commonly debated by experts in the gaming business. The subjects to this improvement might become the graphics of the game, its performance or customer online support. Certainly, as most game technological improvement leads to increased affinity towards the game, the development of these factors might have considerable positive consequences on players' game enjoyment. In the same way, increased game enjoyment will contribute to intention to play the game, which for its part positively influences players' game loyalty (Rouse, 1998; Wu et al., 2008; Zhao & Fang, 2009).
Game story
A virtual environment created inside a video game is known as game story and is often used to involve players in the game world (Zhao & Fang, 2009). Game story in online games is as important as the plot of a movie or a play. A good game story makes the game more enjoyable and increases the retention by keeping the players returning to the exploration of the virtual world (Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005). The game story is closely related to the character development in the game, so as a player can watch its character grow as the story develops. The fact that the players nurtures the stories that their characters have come through makes them appreciate their game experience more and increases the game enjoyment (Wu et al., 2008). Consequently, a well narrated story encourages players to continue discovering and unlocking more mysteries and details about the game plot , thus increasing player retention and customer loyalty (Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005; Wu et al., 2008).
Game graphics
The visual presentation of a gameplay has also been commonly addressed by researchers in terms of enjoyment experienced by players. Online game graphics can be described as a visual part of the game and is the first information players receive when starting a new game. Graphic design in video games can be divided on static graphics and motion graphics ( Zhao & Fang, 2009). Static graphics refer to the items and surroundings in the game world. The more detailed and diverse the static graphics are, the more real the virtual world is seemed (Zhao & Fang, 2009). Motion graphics refers to the video game animation and includes any movement, such as running, fighting, etc. Without fine animation graphics, the game story cannot be told, and the overall game experience seems wicked. The recent technological advancements in motion graphics, such as motion capture, make the performance of a character more realistic and convincing (PowerHouse Animation Studio, Inc., 2019). Comprehensive animation increase game enjoyment as it creates a special atmosphere and represent reality (Zhao & Fang, 2009).
As most players determine the visual experience of video games to be the primal one, the main challenge of the game industry is to constantly enhance the game graphics (Smith, 2002). One way to elevate the visual representation of the game is to develop “liveliness” of the avatar, which is achieved by a photo-realistic face with dynamic changes in expressions (Pearce, 2002). As a result, the players consider the game experience as very close to reality, which influence their game enjoyment (Wu et al., 2008; Zhao & Fang, 2009).
Therefore, the further sophisticated graphics the game provides, the more realistic and immersive the player's game experience (Zhao & Fang, 2009). Inasmuch as most players would admit that game visuals are one of the most critical facets of any computer game, game makers are continuously striving to enhance the graphic quality for each game update or expansion (Smith, 2002).
Game length
The game duration is another factor which may relate to the entire experience of playing. The length of the game determines the overall time that a player spend to achieve the highest level of the game, winning the final items and completing all required tasks. Undoubtedly, the game length cannot be regard as “bad” or “good” as each game is different and the only factor determining the acceptance of certain game length is weather players enjoy it or not. Any game has a fixed duration for completing one game cycle, which is controlled by the plot, gameplay content, and replayability of the game (Schell, 2019). Nevertheless, in order to make the game length accepted by the players, it is important to define and maintain the balance in line with the consistency of the overall game experience (Wu et al., 2008). Moreover, consolidation of the length with the story is also significant (GameSpot, 2015).
As stated before, online game length should be balanced, providing enough time for game story to be told but not exceeding the limits (Wu et al., 2008). For example, when a game is too short, a player can lack the game experience even if he enjoys the graphics and the story. On the other hand, players will be exhausted and eventually quit if the game is too long and they have spent too much time without rewarding results. For instance, the classis version of World of Warcraft has very long gameplay as in order to reach the maximum level of the character, several months needs to be spent for a casual player. Thus, for someone who is able to play for only 1-2 hours a day, this length can seem exhausting and not worth dedicating time to.
The story narration can be undermined if the duration of the game goes beyond acceptable bounds (Boon, 2002). Thus, online game developers should design the games in the way to make it clear that the final goal is achievable in a rational period of time, while proving a full experience with the game story (Boon, 2002). When the game length balance is achieved, the game enjoyment is increased, resulting in customer retention (Wu et al., 2008; Zhao & Fang, 2009).
Perceived ease-of-use
Another feature of game technology is the perceived ease-of-use. This factor is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (Davis, 1989, p. 985). Thus, a user would prefer a technology that is easy to operate than another less user-friendly system. As indicated by the technology acceptance model, perceived ease-of-use contributes directly to a favorable attitude towards an action. That is mainly because of the so-called cost-benefit paradigm. This behavioral pattern refers to the choice an individual makes when performing an action evaluating the effort required for completing the action and the benefit of the results. This has also been tested empirically by multiple researchers, for example Chuan-Chuan Lin & Lu, (2000) and Mathieson et al., (2001). In the course of computer games, perceived ease-of-use may apply to the usability and consistency of user interface (UI). A user friendly UI with intuitive control, structured menu configuration, and online customer support function can lead to the successful play experience and hence game enjoyment (Gao, 2004; Teo et al., 1999).
Online game services
Online game customer service produces online communication with the customers, responses to players' questions and problems. One of the key components of any e-commerce service success is the quality of its online service (Wang, 2008). Quality of customer service influences consumer behavior, as well as customer loyalty (Resnick & Montania, 2003). According to Zhao & Fang (2009), the quality of game services is influenced by several factors, including response promptness, problem solving ability and time, customer service behavior, attention to customers' needs and so on. When the game service quality is poor, it affects the consumers' intentions towards to game or even to the game developers. For example, a recent promise-breakage and false marketing of a remastered Warcraft III by Blizzard, has resulted in decrease of rating of the company and the lowest user-rated game on Metacritic (Fenlon, 2020). Consequently, the perceived quality of game services significantly impacts game enjoyment (Holsapple & Wu, 2008).
1.6 Quality of online game community
A game community that is present online is a result of a collective of people with common preferences and interests who connect on the Internet (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Romm et al., 1997). Almost every online game has a community or forum that provides a platform for generating content and building relationships (Lee et al., 2003). Some games possess very engaged and passionate communities with many active members. These characteristics of a game community determine its quality (Hsu & Lu, 2007). In its turn, the quality of the gaming community is a major factor in shaping the attraction of the players to gaming (Rouse, 1998). Moreover, in the recent years virtual game groups have been increasingly active in sharing their thoughts about the games with developers or distribution companies. Thus, one of the marketing tactics of online game practitioners has become cultivating conversation with their online audiences to sustain loyalty user connections and improve player retention (Tseng et al., 2015). Inasmuch as players tend to communicate with each other, whether in-game or via online groups, it becomes clear that investigating the view of the players towards virtual game communities is essential to improving customer loyalty (Hsu & Lu, 2007).
Social presence is claimed to be a decisive factor of participation in online communities (Ning Shen & Khalifa, 2008). Social presence theory underlines the importance of presence in the mediated communication and explains how participants interact with each other online (Iwasaki & Havitz, 2004). According to Heeter (1992), social presence in a virtual environment refers to the feeling of “being there” and the perception of real communication between individuals. Online game communities are the perfect example of such communication media through which players can sense social presence due to the advancement in technologies and availability of high-speed Internet (Tseng et al., 2015).
Delving deeper, previous research has identified four dimensions of social presence: sense of community, mutual attention and support, open communication and affective connectedness (Kim, 2011). However, only one of these social presence aspects have proved to increase gamer loyalty. The first dimension, sense of community, is considered to be highly relevant in the gaming industry as it positively correlates to customer continuous intention to play (i.e., loyalty in that study) (Hsu & Lu, 2007). Therefore, for present research purpose, the factor related to the online game communities is defined as how players perceive a sense of community and group membership.
1.7 Game enjoyment and intention to play
The theory claims that intention to use any system is mainly governed by an individual's intrinsic and extrinsic interests (Davis et al., 1989). Intriguingly, in the area of video games, players' motivations are mostly intrinsic, which means that pleasure and satisfaction from playing are the leaders of making an effort (Huang & Cappel, 2005). In the gaming context, the pleasure from performing the activity (i.e. playing the game) comes from various aspects of the game, including technological and social factors, that was proved by various studies. The technological factors discussed above significantly impact game enjoyment (Zhao & Fang, 2009; Wu et al., 2008), as well as social norms (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Teng & Chen, 2014) and game community (Tseng et al., 2015; Zhao & Fang, 2009). Game enjoyment, in turn, affect game loyalty through a mediator, intention to play. Thus, studying the factors that contribute to game enjoyment is crucial in order to understand the nature of players' loyalty completely.
While the desire to play (i.e. intention to play) can indicate am affinity to play a game (Hsi?Peng Lu & Wang, 2008), it does not automatically suggest that the consumer would want to play the game for a long time to come. Intention to play online games depends on several factors: social norms, game enjoyment and quality of online game community, as suggested by previous research. Social norms provide an approval of those whose opinions are valued, thus profoundly impacting an intention to play the game (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Rouse, 1998). As discussed in the previous paragraph, game enjoyment plays a decisive role in further intention to play to game. Likewise, the importance of the game community for intention to play can be explained by the human nature to share their thoughts and feelings over the common point of interest (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Zhao & Fang, 2009; Tseng et al., 2015).
To summarize the theoretical background of the current study, loyalty in the gaming context can be defined as the players' positive attitude towards playing the game that further leads to continuous usage or repetitive purchasing. Customer loyalty has been important for the gaming business, as many aspects need to be evaluated to achieve and maintain it. Thus, it is vital to investigate not only the factors that influence game loyalty directly, such as social norms, intention to play and game community, but the indirect effects of game enjoyment and technological factors as well. The following part of the study is meant to connect the stated research question with the theoretical foundation by setting up the hypotheses for testing.
2. Statement of the research question
The theoretical foundation and thorough examination of literature made it possible to uncover the existing gap among academic studies on consumer behavior and customer loyalty. Current research lacks clarity and profoundness in the examination of influential game-related factors (such as game technology, quality of online game community, game enjoyment) may have on loyalty of players of different game genres. Precisely, there is no scientific evidence in the existing academic papers that game factors may impact customer loyalty in different ways or vary completely depending on the game genre. As it has been mentioned in the introduction part, this study proposes that at least one of the examined game-related factors may affect customer loyalty differently for every type of game.
The least explored context in this regard is associated with life-simulation games, meanwhile the relationships between game-related factors and loyalty of role-playing gamers have been extensively examined before (Teng & Chen, 2014; Tseng et al., 2015; Zhao & Fang, 2009). Several researchers have suggested to examine game loyalty from the perspective of different game genres as it may lead to more applicable results (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Teng & Chen, 2014). Therefore, the current study explores customer loyalty from the standpoint of two most popular game genres, life-simulation games and role-playing games, one of which has been barely mentioned in literature, while the latter has been successfully studied by researchers.
The main aim of the thesis is to contribute to scientific knowledge by residing the gap related to the lack of studies investigating customer loyalty in terms of different game genres. For the purpose of achieving the stated goal, the study settles the following research question: Which factors influence customer loyalty for role-playing and life-simulation games?
Life-simulation and role-playing games incorporate top 10 most popular online video games in the world, according to (Technavio, 2018). There are over 1000 games of RPG and LSG genres available on Steam. In order to examine the effects of game factors on players loyalty, two games have been chosen to represent role-playing and life-simulation genres - World of Warcraft (WoW) as a role-playing game and The Sims as a life-simulator. Such approach of concentrating on specific games can be supported by three arguments. First, the studies of Lu & Wang (2008) and Zhao & Fang (2009) focused only on one genre, RPG, whereas others' focus was on multiple games from each genre (Tseng et al., 2015). Moreover, the future implications of the studies that did not apply any genre-specificity suggest that doing so might show more relevant findings (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Teng & Chen, 2014). Thus, taking into account the focal point of the current study is two genres, a thorough and comprehensive analysis can be achieved by concentrating on one particular game for each genre.
Second, The Sims and World of Warcraft represent the most popular games of their types (The Gamer, 2019), and the issue of online game loyalty is especially relevant for these two games. Both The Sims and World of Warcraft have experienced dramatic decrease of subscribers due to the recent game updates. For example, in 2018 when the latest World of Warcraft expansion, The Battle for Azeroth, came out the number of active subscribers dropped by 86% (12 million in 2010 vs 1.7 million in 2018), according to Medium (2019). This expansion has almost completely removed in-game social interaction and the possibility to play in teams. However, when Blizzard released the very first version of the classic WoW game in 2019, the number of active members doubled. The Classic game has again allowed to cooperate and interact inside the game, despite possessing much lower graphics qualities, comparing to the newer expansions. Thus, it is especially interesting to investigate how such game factors as game technology and game community influence RPG players loyalty from the perspective of WoW. The Sims has not experienced such dramatic decrease in the number of players, possibly due to another revenue model. One-time purchase of the Sims cannot really demonstrate the dynamic of players retention in comparison with subscription-based model of WoW. However, the game reviews have gotten worse since the old game release. The Sims 2, in spite of the poor graphics quality by modern standards, has 8.9 out of 10 GameSpot (2004) rate and 90% rate on Metacritic (2004). The Sims 4, the latest version of the game, has less promising reviews: 6/10 on GameSpot (2014) and 70% on Metacritic (2014). Hence The Sims as a life-simulation game also holds relative and intriguing customer loyalty problems to explore.
Third, WoW and The Sims are close to other game in their categories in terms of the factors related to customer loyalty. All massively multiplayer online role-playing games have big game communities, same technological aspects of the games, and same goal - to complete missions while taking a role of a character. Similarly, most simulators, just like The Sims are individual games with almost no big online communities, designed to immerse the player into creating and operating a virtual world around his character.
Even though a potential limitation exists of restricting the research only for two specific games, taking into account aforementioned arguments, two games as their genres' representatives were chosen to conduct the current research. Consequently, the subjects of the research are the players of WoW and The Sims. The statement of the research subject and object correlated with other studies in the field and allows to compare the findings to previous results.
Furthermore, theoretical foundation and the presented differences between the examined games and genres allow to assume anticipated results and develop a series of following hypothesis that were based on the similar scientific experience. In accordance with the studies considered in the previous chapter, the factors related to social norms, intention to play and quality of online game community have significant impact on customer loyalty in online games. Thus, following hypotheses have been developed:
H1: There is a positive correlation between social norms and online game loyalty
H2: There is a positive correlation between intention to play and online game loyalty
H3: There is a positive correlation between the quality of online game community and game loyalty
Therefore, these hypotheses support the primary assumptions of this study. Despite that, based on the theoretical model applied for this research and literature review of the topic, there are a number of factors which indirectly affect online game loyalty via intention to play. These factors include social norms, game enjoyment and game community. Thus, a set of the following hypotheses needs to be devised:
H4: There is a positive correlation between social norms and intention to play
H5: There is a positive correlation between quality of online game community and intention to play
H6: There is a positive correlation between game enjoyment and intention to play
Moreover, consistent with the previous studies and theoretical model, game enjoyment also acts as a mediator between technological factors, social norms, game community and game loyalty. As stated by the theoretical foundation, game story, game graphics, game length, perceived ease-of-use and game services together incorporate game technology factors. Hence the last set of hypotheses should be formulated in order to investigate the indirect impact via game enjoyment and intention to play on game loyalty completely:
H7: There is a positive correlation between social norms and game enjoyment
H8: There is a positive correlation between quality of game story and game enjoyment
H9: There is a positive correlation between quality of game graphics and game enjoyment
H10: There is a positive correlation between proper game length and game enjoyment
H11: There is a positive correlation between perceived ease of use and game enjoyment
H12: There is a positive correlation between quality of game services and game enjoyment
H13: There is a positive correlation between quality of online game community and game enjoyment
Figure 2 illustrates the formulated hypotheses and their relation to the theoretical model. The hypotheses considering both direct and indirect relationships between examined factors and game loyalty are tested through structural equation modeling. The latent variables are the theoretical constructs established by the theoretical foundation. Observed variables are the items that represent those constructs and are measured through online survey questionnaires. The statistical significance of factors within the structural model and the evaluation of observed variables' distribution assessed via the nonparametric criteria will provide a base for approving or rejecting the stated hypotheses. This method and the stages of its implication is thoroughly described in the next section of the study.
Overall, the suggested hypotheses allow to derive conclusions on how game-related factors influence RPGs' and LSGs' players loyalty and thereby answer the research question that has been settled. The next part describes the methodology that was designed to test the reviewed hypotheses.
Figure 2. Illustration of the Stated Hypotheses
3. Methodology
In order to test thirteen reviewed hypotheses and delve into the research question, the prior research activities were assigned. In addition, for each consecutive task the appropriate method was adopted. The defined methodology plan can be represented as following:
a) Define key theoretical concepts considered in the hypotheses and research question, and establish appropriate measurement systems with a list of applicable variables;
b) Design and formulate two survey questionnaires in correspondence with theoretical constructs and previous validated measures;
c) Obtain and pre-process collected data in order to get a full picture;
d) Implement an exploratory analysis to get basic knowledge of the research objects and distinguish conditions of the dataset which may influence further statistical analysis;
e) Perform reliability and validity tests via factor analysis to establish internal consistency between items within each theoretical construct;
f) Conduct structural equation modeling via partial least squares method to evaluate the influence of set of factors in accordance with the theoretical model;
g) Implement bootstrapping resampling technique to test statistical significance of the results;
h) Interpret the obtained results in the context of the developed hypotheses, research question and prior findings;
i) Describe the limitations that current research and dataset may possess;
j) Develop potential ways for further investigation on relevant topics.
For each of the mentioned tasks a set of methods was developed and described in the following chapters.
3.1 The definition of concepts and measurement levels
In order to complete descriptive and statistical analyses, key theoretical concepts and their measurement levels should be identified. In the presented study, key concepts include game enjoyment, game technology (including perceived ease-of-use, game graphics, game length, customer support and game story), quality of online game community, social norms, player's intention and online game loyalty, that were rigorously discussed in the theoretical background section.
Furthermore, besides exploration of aforementioned theoretical constructs, the measurement levels of the concepts were adjusted from the prior researches' validated measures and were modified to fit the specifications of two examined games. Hence, scale items for perceived ease of use were adapted from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) literature (Hsu & Lu, 2007; Zhao & Fang, 2009). Such components of game technology as game graphics, game length and game story were adjusted from the previous study focused on relationships between game technology constituents and game enjoyment (Wu et al., 2008). Items for social norms, game enjoyment and intention to play were adapted from the Theory of Reasoned Action literature (Wu & Liu, 2007). Quality of game service items were adapted from the study examining the importance of trust in online game websites, where the quality of game service was one of the major cause of high trust towards websites (Holsapple & Wu, 2008). The scale items for the quality of game community were accommodated from Social Capital (SCT) and Social Presence (SPT) theories literature and is measured by the degree to which a player feels the sense of community in the game (Tseng et al., 2015). Items for online game loyalty were adapted from previous online game and loyalty studies (Choi & Kim, 2004; Hsu & Lu, 2007; Hsi?Peng Lu & Wang, 2008; Yang & Peterson, 2004).
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