Counting Customers in Mobile Business – The Case of Free to Play

In recent years mobile games have become a major part of the mobile market since gaming apps generate a major amount of the platforms revenue. Whilst different business models have been used - free to play seems one of the most promising to monetize games in the mobile market. Yet, this new concept of monetizing digital content has not obtained much attention of researchers. One research gap is the prediction of users purchasing behavior, as it is a major challenge for practitioners as well as for researchers and of vital importance for managing marketing expenses and designing game mechanics. In this paper we use an existing prediction model for purchasing behavior to analyze its applicability in the mobile market. We use two data sets from free to play games to train and test this well-known model. We can show that existing models, even though they are designed for the same type of customer relationship, struggle with the case of free to play. We show detailed information on the model performance and conclude that because of the unique purchasing behavior in free to play models should be redesigned or the process of application should be more structured

The effects of monetisation strategy to mobile game development and features

Tämä kandidaatintyö käsittelee monetisaatiostrategioiden vaikutuksia mobiilipelien kehittämiseen ja ominaisuuksiin. Aiheen tutkiminen on tärkeää, koska sitä ei ole juurikaan tutkittu aiemmin. Tutkimuksen päätutkimuskysymys on: ”Miten monetisaatiostrategia vaikuttaa mobiilipelin kehittämiseen ja ominaisuuksiin?” Tutkimus toteutettiin kirjallisuustutkimuksena ja aineistoa tutkimusta varten on etsitty tieteellisten julkaisujen tietokannoista. Kirjallisuuden perusteella monetisaatiostrategiat voidaan jakaa kolmeen pääluokkaan, jotka ovat ilmaispeli, premium ja freemium. Ilmaispelin kaikki ominaisuudet ovat ilmaiseksi pelattavissa ja sen tuotto perustuu pelinsisäiseen mainostamiseen tai muiden tuotteiden myynnin tukemiseen. Premium-pelin kaikki ominaisuudet saa käyttöönsä maksaessaan pelistä kiinteän lataushinnan. Freemium-pelin lataaminen ja pelaaminen on ilmaista, mutta sen pelikokemus kannustaa pelaajaa käyttämään oikeaa rahaa pelinsisäisiin ostoksiin tai ladattavaan sisältöön. Ilmaispelien kehittämisessä on keskityttävä mainonnan optimointiin, pelaajien kaveriverkostojen hyödyntämisen ja ikonin sekä nimen viimeistelyyn. Premium-pelien kehittämisessä laatu ja hinnoittelun optimointi ovat keskeisessä roolissa. Kynnystä ostaa premiumpeli voidaan laskea lite-peleillä, jotka antavat mahdollisuuden kokeilla pelin rajoitettua versioita ilmaiseksi. Freemium-pelien kehittämisessä pelaajien hankinta ja sitouttaminen ovat erittäin tärkeää. Lisäksi pelikokemuksen suunnittelu kannustamaan pelinsisäisiin ostoksiin on merkittävä osa freemium-pelien kehittämistä. Tulokset olivat odotettuja ja suoraviivaisia ja ne vastasivat onnistuneesti tutkimusaukon pohjalta laadittuihin tutkimuskysymyksiin

모바일 앱의 성공 요인에 대한 실증 연구: 모바일 게임의 사용자 유지와 유료화를 중심으로

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 경영대학 경영학과, 2018. 2. 유병준.and (3) the balance of skill and challenge. The essay also investigates the impact of competition as an important source of challenge. The empirical result shows that challenge and the balance have significantly positive impacts on IAP consumption. Skill does not show a significant effect on IAP consumption. Competition also has noticeable positive impact on IAP consumption. The dissertation research makes key contributions to the IS literature by highlighting two key managerially and theoretically important findings related to mobile gaming apps: (1) hedonic gratification and social gratification are key drivers of high retention probability and (2) the levels of challenge, the balance of skill and challenge, and competition are substantial factors to increasing IAP consumption. It is also expected that the finding will contribute for business practitioners to provide effective ways for extending user retention and effective monetization in mobile gaming apps.The market growth of mobile applications (app) is remarkable, as they are becoming more important to the global economy. Among the various categories of mobile apps, mobile gaming apps have an enormous number of users and earn high revenue. Many new games are released and then disappear quickly, and mobile game users do not stick with particular games for long. Thus, business practitioners mainly focus on user acquisition, retention, and monetization, because those factors are essential for long-term profitability. Mobile gaming also gains plenty of attention for academic researchers, but there is still limited understanding of the drivers of retention and monetization, and the business implications. Regarding this lack of knowledge, this research aims to make a contribution for academic researchers, as well as business practitioners, to capture the motivators on user retention and purchasing behaviors in mobile gaming apps by analyzing a large-scale game log dataset. The research is organized into two related and distinct studies. The first essay empirically investigates key factors influencing user retention in mobile gaming apps based on the uses and gratifications theory. This theory explains why people decide to continuously use a certain app among many alternative apps to satisfy their different needs. This essay focuses on three categorizes of gratifications - (1) hedonic gratification(2) utilitarian gratificationand (3) social gratification - based on the key tenets of the uses and gratifications theory. The empirical results of duration analysis show that hedonic gratification and social gratification have significant positive impacts on user retention, but the effect of utilitarian gratification is significantly negative on user retention in the mobile gaming app. The second essay empirically investigates key factors of in-app-purchase (IAP) consumption, one monetization method, using the key tenets of flow theory. The key tenets are: (1) skill(2) challenge1.Introduction 1 1.1.Research Background and Motivation 1 1.2.Research Goals and Research Questions 3 1.3.Overview of Essays 4 1.3.1.Essay #1: Key Factors Influencing User Retention in Mobile Applications 4 1.3.2.Essay #2: Key Motivators of In-App-Purchase Consumption in Mobile Applications 5 2.Key Factors Influencing User Retention in Mobile Applications 7 2.1.Introduction 7 2.2 Literature Review 9 2.3.Hypotheses Development 15 2.4.Research Methodology 19 2.4.1.Data 19 2.4.2.Analysis Model 32 2.5.Analysis Results and Discussion 34 2.6.Conclusion 41 3.Key Motivators of In-App-Purchase Consumption in Mobile Applications 43 3.1.Introduction 43 3.2.Hypotheses Development 45 3.3.Research Methodology 52 3.3.1.Data 52 3.3.2.Analysis Model 60 3.4.Analysis Results 61 3.4.1.Model-Free Evidence of Effect by Challenge with Competition 61 3.4.2.Empirical Results of Model Ⅰ 64 3.4.3.Empirical Results of Model Ⅱ 65 3.5.Robustness Check 67 3.6.Discussion and Conclusion 68 References 70 Appendix 86 초록 89Docto

Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik (MKWI) 2016: Technische Universität Ilmenau, 09. - 11. März 2016; Band II

Übersicht der Teilkonferenzen Band II • eHealth as a Service – Innovationen für Prävention, Versorgung und Forschung • Einsatz von Unternehmenssoftware in der Lehre • Energieinformatik, Erneuerbare Energien und Neue Mobilität • Hedonische Informationssysteme • IKT-gestütztes betriebliches Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement • Informationssysteme in der Finanzwirtschaft • IT- und Software-Produktmanagement in Internet-of-Things-basierten Infrastrukturen • IT-Beratung im Kontext digitaler Transformation • IT-Sicherheit für Kritische Infrastrukturen • Modellierung betrieblicher Informationssysteme – Konzeptuelle Modelle im Zeitalter der digitalisierten Wirtschaft (d!conomy) • Prescriptive Analytics in I