Continued Use Of The Extension Of The Planned Behavior Theory-based Online Game

Along with the rapid growth, online game industry in China has been involved in fierce competition at present. As the principal of TOM online Inc said, any company can get into the online game business if they want, but it is not easy for them to survive and keep profitable. So what's at issue here is how to keep the online game consumers' intention of continuance usage which might be helpful for online game companies.Based on reviews of previous literatures and information collection, this dissertation tried to find out the key factors of online game continuance usage by statistical analysis and empirical research. It might be helpful for game companies to understand continuance usage behavior of online game player, then establish marketing and management strategy to get stable customer group and more profit.According to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), the dissertation constructed a model of factors influencing online game continuance usage to test. The model covered several core factors of Theory of Planned Behavior such as attitude, subjective norms, and the self- efficacy which is a substitute for perceived behavior control. Besides, the variables of satisfaction and expectation-confirmation after first use were brought into the model, and life style of consumers was used as moderator variable.The dissertation did exploratory factor analysis for 86 pre-testing questionnaires, the purpose of which was to filter the item of scale and form the final questionnaires according to analysis of reliability and validity. Based on the data of 403 final questionnaires collected form investigation and internet, this dissertation also did research on sample characteristic, and did confirmatory factor analysis to estimate reliability and validity of measurement, then tested the model by structural equation modeling (SEM) . Finally, it tested the moderate effect of life style of consumers in research model by cluster analysis and regression estimation using software SPSS13.0.The results of research indicated the most important factors that influence consumers' continuance usage intention of online games are satisfaction at first, secondly subjective norms, then quality of game design, self-efficacy and quality of service; however, attitude did not be tested to have significant effect. Simultaneity, the most important factors influencing consumers' satisfaction are the quality of game design at first, then the quality of service. The dissertation even did further research on each sub-dimension of game design quality, and found "service reliability" and "service responsiveness" have positive and significant impact on continuance usage intention of online games. The effect of "service responsiveness" is much more notable than that of "service reliability". "Service empathy" has no significant influence on continuance usage intention, while life style significantly affects the relationship between game design quality, service quality and continuance usage intention of online games.The main contributions of this dissertation are:(1) The Theory of Planned Behavior, proposed by Ajzen, has been widely used in every situation. As the main theory basis to explain certain behavior of individuals, it is considered to be effective on forecasting behavior intention. In order to make up some deficiencies of TPB in explaining the behavior of continuance usage, this dissertation added two variables of ECT, confirmation and satisfaction, into the research, analyzed the process and reason of game player's participation in online games as well as their persistence of using, and found out factors that influence the continuance usage of online game by empirical study, suggesting a new approach to study online game. The empirical results indicated that the extending model integrated with confirmation and satisfaction was found to explain 78% variance of online game players' continuance usage intention.(2) Different conclusions were brought out in this dissertation while the author tested the model of TPB under the ground of empirical study. It was found that attitude has no directly significant effect on continuance usage intention of online game. It was also revealed that the effect of satisfaction on continuance usage works without the mediating effects of attitude.(3) Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) emphasizes the issue of self-efficacy. It assumes that the person with higher self-efficacy of certain behavior have much more action intention for this behavior. The application of self-efficacy theory is more common in the research of individual response on information technology. However, this research introduced the conception of self- efficacy into marketing, and tested it as an indirect factor of continuance usage intention of online game. The results approved the hypothesis that self-efficacy influences continuance usage intention of online game directly and positively.(4) Since the previous researchers only descriptively analyzed sub-dimensions of game design quality, the dissertation reviewed literatures related, and then concluded five dimensions of game design quality that influence continuance usage intention of online game, empirically researched the effect of them for the first time. It is concluded that "story structure" has the most important impact on continuance usage intention; "player interact" is second most important thing, while "game music" is least important. "Art style" and "game difficulty" did not be found to have significant influence.The research also did empirical research about the effect of sub-dimensions of service quality on continuance usage intention of online game first. The results indicated a positive association between "service reliability", "service responsiveness" and continuance usage intention. There is no significant relationship between "service empathy" and continuance usage intention.(5) The dissertation took the life style as the standard to classify types of game player in order to study the effect of game design and service quality on different player's continuance usage intention. It was different from traditional reasearches which classify the samples only based on vital statistics variable.The result showed that: firstly, as to players of "traditional-conservative" styles, the effect of "art style" on continuance usage intention is most important, "players interact" is second most important, while "story structure" is least important. There is no significant association between "game music", "game difficulty" and continuance usage intention. "Service reliability" has most significant effect on continuance usage intention, next is "service responsiveness", least is the "service empathy". Secondly, as to players of "neutral -reasonable" styles, "story structure" has most important impact on continuance usage intention, and next is "game music". "Art style", "players interact" and "game difficulty" have no significant influence. "Service responsiveness" affects continuance usage intention siginificantly and positively. However, the effect of "service reliability" and "service empathy" does not occur in this group yet. Finally, as to players of "fashionable-independent" styles, "players interact" has most significant effect on continuance usage intention; next is "story structure". "Art style", "game music" and "game difficulty" have no significant effect. At the same time, "service reliability" but not "service responsiveness" and "service empathy" affects continuance usage intention of online game positively and significantly,...