Resumen

This study analyses player migration from traditional to mobile videogame platforms. A human migration framework, the Push-Pull-Mooring, is adopted to the context of videogame platform switching. A total of 340 valid samples were collected in Chinese videogame forums. We applied an unsupervised machine leaning algorithm, K-mean clustering, to find the videogame player segmentations. Empirical results from K-mean clustering show that there are two types of players in our samples, who are Unshakable stayer and Moderate intentional emigrant. Additionally, according to one-tailed t test, switching intention from traditional video platforms to the mobile platforms in the Moderate intentional emigrant group is significantly higher than Unshakable stayer group. On the other hand, we also apply Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) to estimate the lineal regression models for observations grouped by K-mean clustering. Empirical results from lineal regression model show that possession of Nintendo Switch is negatively associated with switching intention in both segmentations while previous gaming experience on mobile platforms is positively associated with switching intention in both segmentations. It is worth noting that perceived higher gaming performance of traditional platforms is a variable that lower the switching intention only among the Unshakable stayers. In turn, perceived high price of traditional platforms is only positively associated with switching intention among Moderate intentional emigrants, while perceived vendor-related switching costs and previous gaming experience on traditional platforms lower the switching intention in this segmentation. This study contributes to the nascent knowledge body of videogame marketing by creating the first switching empirical model from the traditional videogame platform to the mobile platform, identifying salient factors that positively and negatively affect the videogame platform migration, and giving practitioners of videogame companies useful insights when launching a mobile game project.