EXPRESS: Is In-Game Purchase a Guilty Pleasure? Negative Beliefs and Treatment

In-game purchases have become the dominant source of revenue for developers of digital games and are critical to the growth of the digital game industry. However, the distribution of in-game purchases among gamers is highly skewed, where a very small proportion of gamers, labeled “whales,” account for the majority of in-game purchases, and a massive proportion of non-whales spend a minuscule amount. In this study, we explore how to improve in-game purchases by examining gamers’ underlying beliefs. We postulate that compared to spending on other forms of entertainment, in-game purchases suffer from an unusual set of negative beliefs that work against such purchases. We conduct four consecutive studies related to the negative beliefs, propose an approach to mitigate their impact on in-game purchases, and explain the heterogeneous effects of the proposed approach. Specifically, in Study 1, we demonstrate the existence of negative beliefs. In Study 2, we identify five key types of negative beliefs. In Study 3, we develop an approach to reduce the negativity of these beliefs and improve gamers’ positive attitudes toward in-game purchases. Lastly, in Study 4, we examine reasons behind heterogeneous results from Study 3 on different gaming platforms and using different revenue models, and design more tailored approaches to incentivize in-game purchases for pay-to-play games and gamers on console platforms. Collectively, the findings in this paper reveal a set of overlooked factors that hinder in-game purchases and introduce a low-cost, effective technique that has the potential to influence gamers’ spending behaviors. Our findings extend beyond a single game genre or platform and offer potential benefits to the entire digital game industry.