Minakshi Trivedi is a Professor Neeley Analytics Initiative Chair, J. Vaughn and Evelyne H. Wilson Professor of Business at Neeley School of Business, Texas. Detailed profile can be found at here.
Neeley School of Business, Texas.
March 11, 2024
Research Perspectives from the Gaming Industry
The world of online gaming is one of the fastest growing industries today. This has resulted in unexpected consequences - we explore here some examples.First, the excessive playing of video games, especially for teens and pre-teens, hasseen the implementation of consumer protection laws in many countries. This research evaluates one such consumer protection policy and its effectiveness from both marketing and public policy perspectives. Specifically, we investigate the impact of usage restriction in South Korea on both gamers and the industry using individual-level game usage and spending data. We show that although the regulation reduces overall game usage, the effects are in fact counter to expectations! We also find that its revenue impact is negligible, suggesting that gamers do not change spending patterns because of the intervention. Finally, we discuss the implications of such usage restriction laws as a vehicle to control overconsumption and protect consumers.Second, social interactions among consumers, especially in the consumption of digital goods, have become commonplace in an increasingly interconnected marketplace.
As such, understanding the impact of such social interactions on consumer behavior carries major academic and practitioner significance. Thisresearch focuses on an important, but under researched aspect of social influence in the gaming world and the underlying mechanisms that may be driving peer effects. Using a massive online peer-to-peer game as context, we estimate peereffects arising from ‘anonymous’ peers. The findings suggest a robust and significant influence of anonymous peers, and further, that these effects are largely driven by informational reasons as opposed to competitive concerns (evenin a competitive online gaming context).Finally, we touch briefly on the advent of mobile devices and apps with respect to their impact in the gaming world.We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for consumer behavior,marketing academia and practitioners in the video game industry.
