Факторы потребительского поведения на российском рынке компьютерных игр

Topicality. Video game industry or development, publishing and promotion of games is one of the fastest growing IT and global entertainment industries. In 2020, the global gaming market reached a value of 168 billion dollars, surpassing cinema and sports industries in the United States combined, and is set to reach a value of almost 300 billion dollars over the next five years (Market Watch, 2021). While the pandemic has influenced game development processes and gaming companies modes of operation, it has not fundamentally changed the market and behavior of gaming products consumers, but rather accelerated positive growth trends already seen previously. Newzoo (2021) researchers report that last year socialization was one of the main drivers behind consumer’s decision to engage in video games. This outcome stems from the continuous self-isolation measures that urged people to stay at home and cut intersocial interactions while encouraging them to seek socialization elsewhere, which resulted in an influx of new video games players across all platforms, gaming engagement spike and entertainment spending growth. Even though it currently does seem unlikely that previous year’s record- breaking numbers would remain throughout 2021, researchers still expect the global gaming market to show sustainable growth with approximately 2.8 billion players generating revenues of 189 billion dollars – a 19% increase compared to the previous period (Newzoo, 2021).In 2020 global gaming industry exceeded in revenue movies and music industries combined; Russian gaming market is forecasted to reach 328 bln rubles by 2024 (Insider, 2020).
Research gap
Video games can be considered a relatively new area of research and practice. The first attempts to comprehend virtual computer games were made in the 1980s, however, despite the tremendous speed of propagation, this phenomenon has not been studied deeply enough at the time. According to Games Studies journal editor Espen Aarseth, the start of game research as a systematic and critical production of academic knowledge happened no earlier than the year 2001. It is referred to as year one of the video game studies field becoming an emerging and viable scientific discipline. This year marks the first ever scholar conference where questions of computer games’ cultural impact and scientific significance became the center of academic attention. Later that year, several renowned graduate university programs took a step to become pioneers in adopting computer game studies as a part of regular curriculum (Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al., 2013)
The initial concern with academic viability of video games studies came from the challenge of separating it from the existing media and new-media fields of study as an independent discipline (Espen, 2001). In her 2004 article titled «Textual Theory and Blind Spots in Media Studies» Liv
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Hausken defined the attempts to view and analyze movies, literature and video games as one new- media entity by the term of «media blindness», stating that it can lead to neutral and non-detailed scientific theories on vastly differentiated media (Hausken, 2004). It became more and more clear that video games were in the league of their own when compared to other media formats.
The modern field of video games research stems from ludology, an umbrella term that defines game studies as a whole. While academic discussion on gaming and its consumers has been steadily developing over the past years, there still are many research gaps left. Far more research has focused on other entertainment categories, such as consumers’ attitudes toward cinema, music or television (Marchand and Hennig-Thurau, 2013). Thus, marketing research contributions lag slightly behind the actual video game industry practices. Additionally, most of the current existing academic attention is focused on various negative psychological consequences of video game adoption. The psychological mechanisms mediated by computer game activity aspects are described in the works of K. Yang, K. Anderson, L. Canter, S. Olson. While scholars actively discuss video gaming activities and its influence on individuals from technological, educational and sociological points of view, business perspectives, specifically, consumer behavior research, still have a lot of potential due to the fast-paced development nature of the industry (Michaud,2016). In this research, the questions of gaming motivations, its connections with consumer gamer’s engagement and how that influences purchase intention are analyzed.
Research problem.
Russian gaming market currently has massive potential as a digital entertainment industry. Being able to articulate in what way behavioral factors influence Russian video game consumers’ purchase decision making process and what are the reasons behind this behavior, can provide an important foundation to other adjacent avenues of research, as well as provide an opportunity to interpret and implement those patterns for the benefit of both gaming businesses and customers.
The research object of this study is people who play and purchase video games on consoles or personal computers. The context of this research is Russia. The research subject is factors influencing consumer purchase intention in the gaming industry.
The research goal of this master thesis is to define the relationship between motivations to play games, gaming engagement and consumer’s decision to buy a video game. To fulfill this goal, theoretical, methodological and empirical objectives were formulated for this study:
Theoretical objectives:
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1. To identify features and peculiarities of the video game market, especially in Russia.
2. To review and analyze relevant theories and concepts in consumer behavior, motivation
and engagement areas of study.
3. To identify key motivational factors in the context of game design and marketing in the
video game market.
4. To establish the connection between the described motivational factors, engagement and
purchase intent and to prove their theoretical relevance for this study.
A methodological objective of this thesis is to compose a questionnaire in order to develop
an understanding of different factors influencing Russian consumers to purchase video games. The empirical objectives are of this research are:
1. To identify the relationship between motivation factors of playing games, gaming engagement and customer’s intent to purchase video games.
2. To evaluate the role of motivation, engagement and gamer’s decision to commit to a video game purchase.
This master thesis consists of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. The structure of the thesis is determined by the set objectives. The work was divided into six major stages. During the first stage, review of academic literature dedicated to consumer behavior, gaming motivations and engagement was conducted. Second stage was dedicated to formulation of research questions based on literature review:. RQ1. How gaming motivation factors influence engagement of Russian video game consumers?
RQ2. What is the role of engagement in the relationship between gaming motivations and purchase intentions in Russian gaming industry?
RQ3. How attitude towards purchasing games, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control influence purchase intent of Russian video game consumers?
The third stage included the overview of the overall state of the gaming market through the analysis of its structure, main competitors and recent industry developments and trends. According to formulated research questions, the research methodology was designed, the questionnaire was developed, the respondents’ selection criteria and main channels of questionnaire distribution were determined. The fifth stage involved response collection and data analysis. During the six stage, obtained results were analyzed in terms of its theoretical and managerial applicability, implications for business were formulated, and major conclusions were defined.