In-Game Currency Design and Consumer Spending Behavior

Abstract

In this decade, the gaming industry has rocketed in size and variation of possibilities. New games are seeing new monetization methods that only increasingly grow in complexity and merge digital behavior with the behavior we see in humans in the real world. An example of this would be in the rise of the importance of freemium and competitive game scenes, resulting in a shift in motivations for making in-game purchases switching from functional to non-functional. For immensely popular games such as League of Legends or Fortnite, the emphasis is more on how players can pay to express themselves rather than to gain advantages over other competitors. There has also been tremendous usage of in-game tokens in games to prompt behavior in in-game purchases. This can take place through games providing bonuses in the conversion rate between real money and their in-game purchases, creating bundles, and providing exclusive product offerings. This study dives deeper into the behavior of how people interact with in-game tokens, analyzing how the conversion rate between the home currency to the in-game token may affect the willingness to pay of gamers.