🚀 Introduction
The gaming industry is a massive, rapidly growing industry, with most of its revenues coming from free-to-play (F2P) mobile games. However, the recent paradigm of cryptocurrencies and crypto games is shifting the gaming landscape. While it has been extensively researched why people play traditional mobile games and purchase in-game items, there is little research on crypto games that confirms that the same factors also apply in this emerging market. Therefore, the following research questions were studied:
1. What are the factors that influence the intention to play games and the intention to purchase in games?
2. How do these factors influence the intention to play and the intention to purchase in crypto games?
📚 Literature Review
To answer the 1. research question, a comprehensive literature review was conducted on the theories used for understanding user intentions in the gaming context.
1) The most common theories on user intentions in the gaming context were reviewed
2) Attitude, subjective norms, perceived enjoyment, and perceived usefulness were the most relevant factors
3) 8 relationships were hypothesized between the factors and the intentions to play and to purchase in crypto games
4) Based on the hypotheses, a research model was constructed
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Theory | Definition | Relevant studies |
Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) | Attitudes and subjective norms predict intentions | (Anggraeni & Jonathan, 2021; Hamari, 2015) |
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) | Attitudes predict intentions, and perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use predict attitudes | (Gao et al., 2016; Gao & Li, 2021; Lee & Tsai, 2010; Mäntymäki, 2011; Shahzad et al., 2018) |
Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) | Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions predict intentions | (Lee et al., 2018; Mäntymäki, 2011; Ramírez-Correa et al., 2019; Salman Firdaus & Rahadi, 2021) |
Hedonic-Utilitarian Theory | Hedonic and utilitarian values predict intentions | (Akdim et al., 2022; Chang et al., 2014; Goltermann, 2020; Le Wang et al., 2022; Li et al., 2015) |
Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) | Attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control predict intentions | (Alzahrani et al., 2017; Chang et al., 2014; Lee & Tsai, 2010; Mäntymäki, 2011) |
Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) | Cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative, and tension-releasing needs predict intentions | (Li et al., 2015; Tabet, 2019) |
Theory of Consumption Values (TCV) | Functional, social, emotional, epistemic, and conditional values predict intentions | (Dvoretskyi, 2016) |
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Attitude toward crypto games: An individual’s feelings toward crypto games
Subjective norms toward crypto games: An individual’s perceived beliefs of others regarding crypto games
Perceived enjoyment of crypto games: Perceived enjoyment derived from playing crypto games with a focus on pleasure, fun, and playfulness
Perceived usefulness of crypto games: Perceived benefits acquired from using crypto games with a focus on their instrumental value (instrumental value can represent a state or sense of joy, relaxation, accomplishment, etc. after playing games)
Intention to play crypto games: Individual's readiness to continue playing crypto games
Intention to purchase in crypto games: Individual's readiness to purchase in crypto game
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- Attitude toward crypto games is positively associated with the intention to play crypto games
- Attitude toward crypto games is positively associated with the intention to purchase in crypto games
- Subjective norms toward crypto games are positively associated with the intention to play crypto games
- Subjective norms toward crypto games are positively associated with the intention to purchase in crypto games
- Perceived enjoyment of crypto games is positively associated with the intention to play crypto games
- Perceived enjoyment of crypto games is positively associated with the intention to purchase in crypto games
- Perceived usefulness of crypto games is positively associated with the intention to play crypto games
- Perceived usefulness of crypto games is positively associated with the intention to purchase in crypto games
- 4) Research model:
📋 Study
To answer the 2. research question, the research model was tested on empirical data, which was collected via an online survey.
1) The online survey was announced to the community of users of the cryptocurrency Pi
2) A sample of 79 users (from 40 countries) was collected, who had played a few crypto games, where they could spend Pi to purchase in-game items
3) Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the research model
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Construct | Measurement item | Sources |
Attitude toward crypto games (ATT) | I have a positive opinion about crypto games*
I like them
I think they are not good (reverse**) | (Anggraeni & Jonathan, 2021; Gao et al., 2016) |
Subjective norms toward crypto games (SN) | People important to me would approve of crypto games
People important to me would dislike them (reverse)
People important to me would recommend them | (Anggraeni & Jonathan, 2021; Gao et al., 2016) |
Perceived enjoyment of crypto games (PE) | I think crypto games are fun
I do not enjoy playing them (reverse)
They are entertaining | (Gao et al., 2016; Gao & Li, 2021; Hsiao & Chen, 2016; Lee & Tsai, 2010) |
Perceived usefulness of crypto games (PU) | Playing Match Pi allows me to achieve my purpose*** more quickly
Playing Match Pi allows me to achieve my purpose more effectively
Playing Match Pi allows me to achieve my purpose more easily | (Gao et al., 2016; Gao & Li, 2021; Lee & Tsai, 2010) |
Intention to play crypto games (PLAY) | It is worth playing crypto games
I would like to continue playing them
They are a waste of time (reverse) | (Gao et al., 2016; Gao & Li, 2021; Lee & Tsai, 2010) |
Intention to purchase in crypto games (PURCH) | It is worth spending Pi on crypto games
I would not spend money on them
I would like to spend money on them | (Gao et al., 2016; Gao & Li, 2021; Lee & Tsai, 2010) |
* A crypto game was defined as any game that includes cryptocurrencies (e.g., crypto version of match-3 available on the Pi platform)
* Reversed questions used a reversed scale to evaluate them
** It was noted that the purpose of a crypto game includes among others sense of joy, relaxation, accomplishment
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Demographic variable | Value | Frequency (%) |
Gender | Male | 68 (86%) |
Female | 11 (14%) | |
Age | < 15 | 0 (0%) |
15 – 25 | 13 (17%) | |
26 – 35 | 24 (30%) | |
36 – 45 | 16 (20%) | |
> 45 | 26 (33%) | |
Country | USA | 9 (12%) |
India | 8 (10%) | |
Korea | 5 (8%) | |
Nigeria | 4 (5%) | |
Albania, China, Nepal, Netherlands, Vietnam | 3 each (19%) | |
Denmark, EU (not specified), Hungary, Philippines, UK | 2 each (13%) | |
Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Croatia, Czech, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, Yemen | 1 each (33%) |
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First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the consistency between the construct measures and the understanding of the construct itself was tested, i.e., whether the data fit the hypothesized measurement model.
The CFA was conducted in two iterations. In the first iteration, all measurement items were considered in the model. After analyzing the first indicators of the model fit, some measurement items were discarded due to their poor fit with the model, and a second CFA was conducted.
Measurement model was tested for reliability, validity, and overall model fit. Reliability is a measure of the interrelation between items of the same latent construct, i.e., it indicates if the items measure the same construct. Validity is the degree to which an item accurately represents what it is expected to. Model fit measures how well the measurement model fits with the empirical data.
Finally, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to test the hypotheses. The purpose of SEM is to validate the structural model with the data and test the hypothesized paths. This was conducted in two iterations. In the first iteration, the proposed research model was tested. In a second iteration, the research model was slightly adjusted, which substantially increased fit indices and overall model significance.
💡 Results and Discussion
The results of the study confirmed 4 out of 8 hypotheses:
1) Attitude → Intention to play & to purchase
2) Perceived enjoyment & usefulness → Intention to play
3) Subjective norms insignificant
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Attitude toward crypto games was the most significant factor to predict both the intentions to play and to purchase in crypto games. Considering that about 75% of Americans aware of cryptocurrencies consider them a risky investment (The Harris Poll, 2022), attitude is the largest barrier to the wide adoption of crypto games.
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Followed by attitude, as expected, perceived enjoyment and usefulness continue to be important predictors of the intention to play. However, these did not significantly influence the intention to purchase, indicating that users who already enjoy the game won't necessarily spend money.
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Surprisingly, subjective (social) norms did not have any significant influence on either the intention to play or the intention to purchase in crypto games. Perhaps, crypto game users are still early adopters who generally tend not to comply with social norms.
📈 Outlook
This research has both theoretical and practical implications. In the future, some limitations and further possibilities should be addressed.
1) The study validates the relevance of factors from traditional gaming for crypto games
2) Based on the results, crypto game developers should address attitudes first
3) Future research should focus on generalizing results to different types of crypto games
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From a theoretical perspective, this study validates the relevance and relationships of the constructs from the literature on traditional gaming in the novel context of crypto games. While the relevance of the attitude on both the intentions to play and purchase in crypto games is confirmed, it questions the relevance of subjective norms in the context of crypto games.
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From a practical point of view, existing crypto game developers insights into user intentions and motivations. Among others, the focus of crypto game developers should be on improving the attitude that people have toward crypto games to reach a wider audience of traditional gamers.
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In future research, the limitations of this study should be addressed. The scope of this study was only one cryptocurrency and only one variation of crypto games, in which cryptocurrencies are exclusively used as a payment method. Therefore, future research should aim to conduct a wider analysis of users of different cryptocurrencies and different types of crypto games to generalize these results to the full spectrum of crypto games. In addition, further constructs, among others trust and perceived security, should be further addressed.
🗃️ Infographic
20220930_Onuma_Infographic.pdf63.6KB
