Abstract
This study aims to explore the causes that lead to online game users to continue to pay during a game. How to attract gamers to continue to pay money while playing a game is a critical issue for game development companies. This study focuses on the freemium game, which is due to the market boom in gaming in recent years. Because the market has expanded rapidly, game development companies have invested in business models, and, coupled with the game users’ tendencies to purchase virtual goods to enhance game play or add decorations to a game, gamers have expectations before they pay and actual performance that comes after they pay. Previous studies typically focused on gamers’ first pay for a game. However, gamers who constantly pay for a game are the type of users that game makers and game development companies want. The study applies expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) to develop a model that demonstrates how gamers continuously pay for a game. We collected 999 valid respondents via the internet, and used PLS and ANOVA to analyze data. This study analyzed the characteristics and behavior of gamers who continuously pay for games. The results showed that gaming companies should focus on performance quality, and meet gamers’ expectations. Moreover, investigated from the result, we suggested that gaming companies should not ignore gamers who hold a high expectation toward the game. The significant result showed that high expectation gamers are likely to re-purchase in the game since they tend to achieve their sense of accomplishment, entertainment and other psychology feelings in online games.