Abstract

Online video gaming is an activity in which individuals of all ages participate for socializing, and entertainment. When played in moderation, playing games helps improve social and mental well-being. While this is true for most players, a significant minority is found to become obsessive users of video gaming and research in psychology and psychiatry has examined how game addicts suffer socially, mentally, and behaviorally. Game addicts may be referred to as excessive gamers or pathological gamers who spend excessive time video gaming such that it becomes difficult to disengage from the game resulting in a disruption to healthy functioning (Lemmens, Valkenburg and Peter 2009). As seen in several game genres, another side to addictive gaming is that such players often spend excessively on games. For social and gacha games it has been reported that more than half the revenue comes from less than 2% of players. According to VentureBeat.com, for game companies such as 5th Planet, 40% of revenue came from 2% of players who spend over $1000 per month and 90% of revenue came from players who spend over $100 (Carmichael 2013). The high spending players are commonly referred to as the whales of gaming. While whales regularly make larger spending transactions, another group is the dolphins who make smaller monetary transactions consistently. Whales and dolphins are characterized by factors such as high spending, playtime, and points earned in-game. Past studies show that monetary spending in video games may be associated with factors such as addictive personalities, game mechanisms (ex. gacha system), or emotional investment. For social games, enabling community interactions among players contributes to emotional investment, thereby making them addictive users of the game. A common strategy used by some game companies is to target whales or dolphins, i.e., addicted players who spend in excess on game purchases. This in turn drives the in-game economy. Game addicts experience higher levels of emotion than other players. But how is game addiction associated with whale and dolphin behavior? What makes whales and dolphins spend excessively? Our study investigates how spending behavior is associated with emotional investment in the online game and how that further leads to some players spending exponentially more than regular players. In other words, compared to regular video game players, whales or dolphins experience greater enjoyment and are more emotionally invested in the game. As a result, they spend more, and have greater intentions to play. It is important to study excessive gaming as a factor associated with being a whale or dolphin because game companies design monetization strategies with this target group in mind. Additionally, in mobile gaming, whales and dolphins can greatly influence the financial success of the game accounting for over 50% in sales revenue. Therefore, for retention, marketers, game developers and publishers find it essential to keep them engaged and happy by bringing content to meet their needs.

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