Gamification and economic behavior: Geospatial insights into mobile exercise app usage in South Korea

This study investigates how mobile exercise app-enabled gamified benefits (epistemic, personal integrative, and social integrative) independently and interactively influence economic outcomes from a nationwide perspective. Utilizing unique data on physical exercise and shopping activities collected from 7558 South Korean exercise app users over 3 years, we employed aspatial and spatial econometric models, along with visualization techniques, to examine the spatially varying relationships between gamified benefits and shopping behaviors at the municipality level. The results indicate that while social integrative benefits decreased shopping frequency and amount, the interaction terms of epistemic and social integrative benefits positively influenced shopping frequency. Furthermore, our spatial analysis suggests that the gamification–shopping relationship varied based on specific gamified benefits and across individual and clustered districts, cities, and counties across South Korea. These insights can guide local governments and tourism firms, suggesting opportunities to promote destination-specific gamified services for boosting the local economy.