What Does Bullet Screen Bring to Video Platform? A Theoretical Analysis Comparing Different Bullet Screen Modes

Many video platforms (e.g., TikTok and Bilibili) choose to provide bullet screens on their video content. With the different types of bullet screen features, platforms face the challenge of choosing an appropriate bullet screen strategy, especially when consumers have different preferences for bullet screens. To address this challenge, this paper constructs a game-theoretic model to analyze the optimal bullet screen strategy for video platforms with two-sided market characteristics. Although there are some arguments that bullet screens can be detrimental to the platform’s advertising business, our study shows that when the bullet screen feature can attract more consumers, it is beneficial for both the platform and the advertisers. Additionally, we found that as consumers’ attention levels toward bullet screens increase or the proportion of bullet screen preference consumers rises, the video platform will enhance the quality of bullet screens provided to consumers and raise advertising pricing for advertisers. However, the platform’s profits do not necessarily increase accordingly and are also influenced by the platform’s bullet screen cost coefficient. Our comparative analysis of the three bullet screen models reveals that when consumers in the market are ad-fatigued, the model that allows bullet screens to cover ads is the optimal choice for the platform, and when there are differences in the cross-side network effects of advertiser to consumers, the model that maximizes the platform’s profits depends on the size of the cross-side network effects of advertiser to consumers. Our study provides important managerial insights for video platforms, especially on how to provide bullet screens under two-sided market structures. In future research, we will strive to better integrate consumer attention theory with theoretical modeling.