earticle

영어

The mobile game sector becomes the fastest growing game sector with its astonishing market size. In mobile games, to understand the factors related to in-app purchase is important to attract more users and increase games’ revenue. Despite its importance, however, few studies which empirically consider actual purchasing behaviors in mobile games are found. Therefore, we examine the impact of habitual and goal-oriented behaviors on in-app purchase, and find that users are more likely to buy virtual items when they play more frequently, and when they are at a higher stage. We also show that free items given in the game make users buy more items. Empirical data show that free items boost item selling without cannibalization even though some may worry about cherry picking behaviors for free items.