What Sells: A Study of the Player Spending Habits and the Game Industry Monetization Models

The video game industry has seen massive development in the recent decades, with monetization strategies becoming an important part of its growth. In this study, we investigate the different monetization models used in the gaming industry, and how they relate to player spending behavior and motivations. By conducting a survey on the spending habits and to understand player opinions towards different methods of monetization, we analyzed the different types of monetization models and strategies, gained insight on why players spend money on the free games and the games they already own, and in general, on what do the players most frequently spend money on in their games. The findings from the survey reveal that unlike originally expected, majority of the players reported spending money to buy something after spending money on acquiring the product. The largest driving motivation being the desire to enhance gameplay, with other factors such as access to additional content or access to cosmetics being major factors. Similarly, our observations indicate that the decision-making process on spending money on a new product is fairly traditional, and there are ethical concerns which affect the player attitudes towards the games as products, and their attractiveness to the potential customers.