From traditional gaming to mobile gaming: video game players' switching behaviour

Abstract

This paper intends to uncover whether mobile gaming is complemental or substitutable to traditional gaming. A human migration framework, the Push-Pull-Mooring, is adopted to the context of video game switching. A total of 340 valid samples were collected from Chinese video game forums. We applied K-mean clustering to find different video game player segments. We also applied Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) to estimate linear regression models for the whole sample and the identified segments. Results demonstrate that 7 of the 13 variables included in the conceptual model have a significant impact on the switching intention, which are Perceived expensiveness of traditional gaming(PE), Perceived flexibility of mobile gaming(PF), Perceived cost of lost benefits(PCLB), Perceived high performance of traditional gaming(PGP), Past traditional gaming experience(EXPT), Past mobile gaming experience(EXPM), and Ownership of hybrid consoles(OHC). Moreover, results from the clustering analysis show that there are two segments in our sample, labelled Unshakable stayer and Moderate intentional emigrant. Switching intention from traditional to mobile gaming is low across the whole sample, although there are differences between the segments. We conclude that traditional gaming is not being substituted by mobile gaming. In turn, mobile gaming serves a complementary role for the players of traditional gaming.