A Whale of a Tale: Gaming Disorder and Spending and Their Associations With Ad Watching in Role-playing and Loot-box Gaming

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A Whale of a Tale: Gaming Disorder and Spending and Their A Whale of a Tale: Gaming Disorder and Spending and Their

Associations With Ad Watching in Role-playing and Loot-box Associations With Ad Watching in Role-playing and Loot-box

Gaming Gaming

Samuel M. Tham

Colorado State University

Gregory P. Perreault

Appalachian State University

, [email protected]

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Associations With Ad Watching in Role-playing and Loot-box Gaming" (2021).

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A Whale of a Tale: Gaming Disorder and Spending and

Their Associations With Ad Watching in Role-Playing and

Loot-Box Gaming

Samuel M. Tham

& Gregory P. Perreault

Department of Journalism and Media Communication, Colorado State University,

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Department of Communication, Appalachian State University, Boone, North

Carolina, USA

Abstract

Mobile games featuring the loot-box design are associated with gambling because of

the uncertainty in the value of the purchase and the propensity for gamers to keep

spending. Role-playing games (RPGs) have been associated with gaming disorders

because of the addictiv eness and immersion experienced by gamers. Advertisers have

capitalized on this gaming trend by having gamers watch advertisements, often in

return for earning in-game currency. In this study, we explored the intersection of

role-playing and loot-box mobile gaming, in particular examining the association

with gaming disorders and ad watching and the role of game spending. An online

survey was conducted (n = 595) in which we recruited participants who play four

popular loot-box RPGs on their mobile dev ices. In line with previous research, we

found similarities between these players and those with disordered gaming and an

association with increased game and gaming involvement. We found that different

spending habits based on gamer classiﬁcations have unexpected associations with the

willingness of gamers to watch ads. Our results have implications for loot-box

gamers, game designers, and advertisers, as we believe that addicted loot-box

gamers, because of the association between loot-box games and gambling, may be

experiencing a form of morbidity and that these gamers may be more susceptible to

such addictions.

Keywords: loot box, problematic gaming, addiction, gambling, advertising

Résumé

Les jeux mobiles comportant un coffre à butin sont associés à la pratique des jeux

vidéo en raison de l’incer titude liée à la valeur de l’achat, et la propension des joueurs

Journal of Gambling Issues

Volume 46, February 2021 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4309/jgi.2021.46.5

http://igi.camh.net/doi/pdf/10.4309/jgi.2021.46.5

à continuer de dépenser. Les jeux de rôle ont été liés au jeu compulsif en raison de la

dépendance et de l’immersion des joueurs. Les annonceurs proﬁtent de cette

tendance au jeu en forc¸ant les joueurs à regarder fréquemment des annonces aﬁn

d’obtenir de la monnaie du jeu en question. Cette recherche se penche sur le point

d’intersection du jeu de rôle et du coffre à butin dans les jeux mobiles, et

particulièrement sur l’association à des troubles liés au jeu, à la visualisation

d’annonces et au rôle des dépenses en jeu. Un sondage en ligne a été mené (n = 595)

en recrutant les participants parmi les personnes qui jouent sur leur appareil mobile à

quatre jeux de rôle prisés offrant un coffre à butin. Tout comme dans les recherches

précédentes, nous avons constaté des similarités avec le jeu compulsif et leur

association à l’augmentation des jeux et de la pratique du jeu. Nous avons également

constaté que différentes habitudes de dépenses fondées sur la classiﬁcation des

joueurs sont liées de manière inattendue au consentement des joueurs à regarder des

annonces. Nos résultats comportent des implications pour les joueurs de jeux offrant

un coffre à butin, les développeurs de jeux et les annonceurs, car nous sommes

convaincus que les joueurs dépendants qui jouent à des jeux offrant un coffre à butin

pourraient souffrir d’une forme de morbidité, et qu’ils pourraient être plus

susceptibles à de telles dépendances.

Introduction

In 2017, a Reddit user nothing024 posted a cautionary story about his experience

playing the mobile video game Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius. As an adult with a

demanding job and a family, he found that he could not play traditional video games

much anymore and Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius seemed like the perfect solution—it

allowed him to play on the go and, for a small price, he could try to ‘‘ summon’’ or

gamble nostalgically for his favourite characters from traditional Final Fantasy

games.

Over the course of a year, those small amounts added up to $16,000. In his Reddit

post, he acknowledged that he had likely ruined his marriage, his relationship with

his children, and his bank account. In one anecdote, he described being on a family

vacation and spending the vacation glued to the phone, summoning wildly for a

hotly anticipated unit and spending nearly $2,500 that afternoon alone (Tim, 2017).

The loot-box design of video games has been linked to gambling addictions (Zendle

& Bowden-Jones, 2019). The role-playing game (RPG) genre in particular often

places the gamer in the role of a protagonist character; hence, the player ends up

making an emotional investment in the character, which could lead to problematic

use when games lack a deﬁnitive end (Yee, 2006). As little research has been done to

investigate mobile RPGs and loot-box games (Britt & Britt, 2020), in our study, we

tested the impact of how such engaging and gambling-designed games may have an

A WHALE OF A TALE

effect on those who have a gaming disorder. We also examined how gamers in such

games may be more susceptible to advertising promotions for in-game currency to

enrich their game play.

Mobile Gaming

The mobile app market recorded over $60 billion in revenue in which mobile game

apps single-handedly accounted for $48.3 billion (82%) of the revenue (Nelson,

2018). The adoption of mobile games is thought to stem from social gratiﬁcation

(Wei & Lu, 2014) derived from the social connections made through an online

gaming world. The revenue-generating models for mobile games are broken down

into three broad categories: (1) downloads, (2) in-game purchases, and (3)

advertising (Balakrishnan & Grifﬁths, 2018). In-game purchases have often been

popular in mobile gaming, as a gamer can spend a dollar to purchase an extra life in

a game or 10 dollars to purchase a cosmetic outﬁt or skin (Wardle, 2019).

In particular, free-to-play (F2P) games have been particularly proﬁtable for

developers. For F2P games, although the game is free to play, some areas, activities,

or content may be inaccessible without micro-transactions. All the games examined

in the present study are considered F2P. Yet it is worth noting that regardless of the

success of the F2P ﬁnancial model, the vast majority of such games receive little or

no revenue (Pinchefsky, 2013). The model behind such games is that although the

game is free to download and play, developers create areas in the game that are gated

behind a paywall (Tom, 2015). Monetization strategies often occur through the loot

boxes, which has associations with gambling and problematic gaming (Brooks &

Clark, 2019).

F2P games tend to be structured to limit time and/or resources. This structure allows

them to provide options to monetize (Hamari & Järvinen 2011; Hamari &

Lehdonvirta 2010). Many such games include a stamina component, wherein players

can attempt only a certain number of activities before having to wait minutes or

hours before they can play again (Perreault & Perreault, 2020a). Conversely, the

game typically offers opportunities to pay money in order to continue playing

through micro-transactions.

Such games are typically designed with metrics in mind, using statistics to determine

which content and features are most popular (Paavilainen et al., 2013). The player

base is cultivated to optimize spending; fan communities are often seen as an avenue

to cultivate that audience (Perreault & Perreault, 2020a), often with strategic

communicators empathizing with players on everything from in-game drop rates

(Perreault & Perreault, 2020a) to issues outside of the game (e.g., criticism of the

gaming community; Perreault & Perreault, 2020b). One funding model, which is

found in the games in this study, targets players who spend inordinate amounts of

money. These are the high rollers, those who represent the ‘‘ smaller than expected

segment of the customer base’’ who ‘‘ might be inﬂuencing how successful or

proﬁtable a gambling service is’’ (Tom et al., 2014, p. 94). These groups of gamers

A WHALE OF A TALE

are commonly referred to by using a ﬁshing analogy: Whales are players who spend a

signiﬁcant amount of money in the game (Alha et al., 2014). These players typically

spend what they can to achieve their desired outcome in the game. This analogy is

extended in gaming parlance, so that those who have decreased spending habits use

self-ascribed group terms such as dolphins, those who spend money but less than

whales do, and minno ws, those who spend almost nothing. These spending habits/

characterizations are self-perceived as opposed to being rooted in actual numerical

spending. In other words, a person who spends $20 a month may consider himself a

whale, given that $20 is a substantial investment for him ﬁnancially and this spending

enables him to accomplish his goals. Yet others might consider their own investment

of $20 as more of a minnow spending habit, given that they can afford substantially

more. These perceptions indicate that these spending habits are contextual—as are

the dangers associated with them.

The monetization in games change depending on the customer base and player types

(Civlek et al., 2018). Game companies are often aware of many copycat games in the

market and attempt to design a game to keep their players playing regardless of their

status as non-paying, minnows, dolphins, or whales by providing numerous activities

so that they feel that they have accomplished something during their session, such as

beating levels and earning skins—or outﬁts—for their characters (Wardle, 2019).

Hence, developers introduce mechanics such as challenges, as they hope to keep the

whales continually spending while enticing non-payers to play, and consider

spending, through continual use of ad watching for in-game currency.

Gaming Disorder

Certain genres of games create more susceptibility to gaming disorders than others

do (Lemmens & Hendriks, 2016). Gaming disorder shares roots with internet

disorders whereby users do not regulate the amount of time that they spend online.

However, in mobile games, such disorders manifest not only through the amount of

time spent in a game, but also in other ways, such as changing habits and sleep

patterns (Peracchia & Curcio, 2018) to accommodate gameplay. The World Health

Organization recognizes gaming disorder as an International Classiﬁcation of

Disease, deﬁning it as

a pattern of gaming behavior y characterized by impaired control over

gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent

that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and

continuation or escalation of gaming despit e the occurrence of negative

consequences. (2018)

However, gaming disorder can take different forms depending on the game itself. In

the current study with mobile RPG loot-box gaming, disordered gamers revolve their

life activities around the game, for example, having sleep scheduled around stamina

refreshes: setting an alarm for 3 a.m. to ensure that their stamina points are not

wasted, hence perpetuating the disorder in this manner. Gamers often describe being

A WHALE OF A TALE

motivated to play as a result of ‘‘ socialization/friendships, the opportunity to exert

control in their lives, enjoyment, inspiring creativity, discovering a sense of community,

challenge, and relaxation’’ but also simply because they wanted to ‘‘ ﬁll idle time and y

were too tired/lazy/unable to do anything else’’ (Shi et al., 2019, p. 297).

Gamers who experience problems with games are more likely to be found among

those who play online RPGs (Kuss et al., 2012) because of the time investment and

immersion of such games. In particular, immersion in the role-playing world has two

distinctive features. First, such games often feature a distinct storyline that helps

keep the gamer immersed. Second, the never-ending concept of the game helps create

a sense of continuity, such that a gamer’s resources (e.g., characters, equipme nt,

gold) are saved in the game’s server. Hence, each session is a continuation of their

journey in the game with the resources and accomplishments that they have already

earned. Thus, spending more money in the game helps build up the longevity of the

possessions that the gamer has in the game.

Previous research has shown that problematic gamers spend less money when there

are fewer loot boxes to buy in a game (Zendle, 2019); thus, having more opportunity

to spend could be part of the problem. In addition, researchers have found that

gamers who are more likely to pay money in loot boxes are often more susceptible

to problematic gaming (Zendle,Cairns, et al., 2020). But problematic gaming is a

behaviour that has a theoretical root in concerns regarding attitude and behaviour.

Attitudes and Behaviour

To better understand such problematic gaming and spending, we must ﬁrst consider

attitudes. Attitudes are often identiﬁed as a key indicator for predicting behavioural

intentions and behaviour (Azjen, 1985, 1991). An attitude can be deﬁned as a

‘‘ relatively stable tendency to respond to people, concepts, and events in an

evaluative way’’ (American Psychological Association, 2017). One ’s attitude is based

on one’s belief regarding the outcome of a behaviour, whereby a positive attitude

often results in a greater likelihood of the intent of performing the behaviour (Azjen,

1991). In other words, attitudes are relevant for determining the ways in which a

mobile game player might evaluate a loot-box game and act on it.

According to Katz (1960), attitudes serve functions in order to meet an individual’s

psychological needs. The functions of attitudes can be broadly categorized into four

areas: utilitarian, ego defensive, self-expressive, and knowledge. The utilitarian

function of attitudes helps people evaluate the positive and negative beneﬁts of a

behaviour, the ego defensive function helps people articulate and focus on their

core beliefs as persons, the value expressive function consists of attitudes that people

hold that allow them to express themselves to others, and the knowledge function

is often used to help people make sense of the world around them (Katz, 1960).

The functions of attitudes vary from individual to individual, the three sources of

variations attributed to attitude functions being personal characteristics, domain

characteristics, and situation characteristics (Herek, 1987). Previous research on

A WHALE OF A TALE

mobile gaming has demonstrated the utility of considering the effects of attitude in

conceptualizing mobile game play (Yang et al., 2014; Youm, 2017).

Loot-box Gaming and Gambling

Loot-box games essentially turn a micro-transaction purchase into gambling (Zendle

& Bowden-Jones, 2019), preying on the psychological weaknesses of players (King &

Delfabbro, 2018). Loot boxes are widely considered to be a form of gambling (Britt

& Britt, 2020; Brooks & Clark, 2019), primarily because of the randomized items

that gamers can acquire in a loot box. In 2017, legislators created rules that govern

and legislate what they consider as gambling in such games (Good, 2018). The

similarity to gambling in loot-box games revolves around gamers continually making

loot-box purchases.

As Zendle Meyer, et al. (2020) note, the majority of top-grossing mob ile games—

59% of Android games and 59% of iPhone games—feature loot boxes. Hence, it is no

surprise that a large portion of gamers—56% in one study—have purchased loot

boxes (Kristiansen & Severin, 2020). A typical loot box purchase yields an

assortment of in-game items that the gamer can use, with the most sought-after items

often being more rarely acquired, with chances of 5% or less, depending on the game.

Gamers seeking to obtain a particular item are forced to purchase loot box after loot

box until they are lucky enough to acquire the item that they desire, thus potentially

spending a lot of currency and/or money. In a sense, loot boxes could be considered a

‘‘ gateway activity’’ for many that can be harmful and can ‘‘ normalise gambling’’

(Wardle, 2019, p. 1110). Worth noting, however, is that some research indicates that

it is not so much the gaming, but the loot box that is the problem. Macey and

Hamari (2018) found that gaming habits had the least inﬂuence—among numerous

other factors—on gambling. It could be that ‘‘ video games are simply a vehicle, like

many other activities, employed to fulﬁl particular needs derived from the activity of

gambling’’ (Macey & Hamari, 2018, p. 351). Such needs include the need to satisfy

social pressure within a community (Zendle et al., 2019). The factors that put one at

risk include ‘‘ having a lower income, being younger, not being married’’ and being

employed (Turner et al., 2018, p. 106).

Advertising in Mobile Games

In-game advertising (IGA) has for many years run into problems because of the

difﬁculty in strategically placing content without interrupting the user’s enjoyment of

the game; it has been a model of failure by game users Reports have shown that

mobile in-game video ads for rewards have been preferred by developers, as they also

provide a signiﬁcant portion of revenue for mobile games (Tran, 2017). In addition,

70% of users would rather watch ads than pay for content in the games they play

(Shaul, 2016).

Mobile game advertising can be broadly deﬁned by three distinct categories:

(1) IGA, (2) advergames, and (3) advertising in social network games (Terlutter &

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Capella, 2013). For IGA, advertising elements are found in the construct of the

game, whereas advergames are often games that comprise sponsored content

developed by an advertiser, and advertising in social network games often

incorporates real-world brand companies that sponsor certain aspects of a social

game to have their brand name displayed. Unlike traditional mobile advertising,

which has high annoyance factors leading to users seeking to hit the ‘‘ X’’ and close

the ad, the premise of mobile game ads is to reduce intrusiveness and to help the

players in their gaming experience (eMarketer, 2015).

Compared with traditional advertising, video games as a vehicle of advertising have

been more effective in implicit memory, leading to better brand recall (Yang et al.,

2006). As a result of the rise in video advertising—33% of revenue in the mobile app

industry (Koestier, 2017)—advertising has shifted the way that companies reach

an audience via mobile gaming because of more powerful cell networks and devices.

An increasingly popular model is to offer ads that can be watched in exchange for

in-game currency in mobile gaming.

No previous research has been done on the role of advertising in mobile game

purchasing habits that we could identify. Considering that in-game currency

increases at a ﬁxed rate in the game, we would expect players who do not spend as

much money to be more willing to spend more time watching ads as an alternative

way to earn currency. Conversely, we would expect players who spend money to

purchase currency to be less likely to watch ads. With all of this in mind, we posed

the following hypotheses and research questions:

H1: Gamers with higher spending habits in the game will show a more positive

attitude towards the game.

H2 Higher spending habits in the game will predict a greater amount of time

spent in the game.

H3: Gamers with higher spending habits in the game will show less willingness

to watch ads for in-game currency.

H4: Gamers with higher spending habits in the game will show greater

involvement in the game.

H5: Gamers with higher spending habits in the game will show a greater level of

gaming disorder.

H6a: A more positive attitude towards the game will result in ad watching for

in-game currency.

H6b: A more positive attitude towards advertising will result in ad watching for

in-game currency.

H6c: Higher involvement in the game will result in ad watching for in-game

currency.

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H6d: Higher gaming disorder will result in ad watching for in-game currency.

RQ1a: Is there a difference in time spent between the four RPG mobile games?

RQ1b Is there a difference in willingness to watch ads in the four RPG mobile

games?

Method

Data Collection and Participants

Data collection was conducted via an online survey with Qualtrics. Respondents

were recruited online from the subreddits of four mobile games that featured the

loot-box system: Brave Frontier, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Fire Emblem Heroes,

and Fire Fantasy Brave Exvius. A new thread was created in each of the subreddits to

invite players from these games to complete the survey. No incentives were offered.

Given that the mechanics of each game differ slightly because of the game objectives

and play style, the games were selected to capture the similarities between user

experiences in this genre of mobile games. These games revolve around the

mechanics whereby most of the collectible items/units in the game are locked behind

loot boxes. To acquire an item, a gamer needs to spend currency or money to

purchase a loot box in the game. The items in this loot box vary in rarity (common,

uncommon, rare, ultra rare), making acquiring rare items in the game a function of

luck or spending a large amount of currency.

Overall, 595 participants from the United States answered the survey from the four

subreddits. Of these, 90.6% were men, 80.7% were single, and 47.6% were students.

The dominantly male response rate is more representative of Reddit’s userbase than

of gaming itself, which has become increasingly heterogeneous. The mean income of

the participants was $50,000 to $54,999. The mean age group was 18–25 years, which

accounted for 49.7% of the respondents.

The survey ﬁrst inquired about the amount of time and money that the respondents

spend in the game they play before asking several questions about their attitude

towards the game, followed by gaming disorder and involvement measures.

Respondents were also asked about how much time they were willing to spend

watching ads in the game. Finally, they were asked several questions about

advertising attitudes, followed by demographic questions.

Measures

Game Involvement

Game involvement was measured with an index of six items. Participants were asked

to characterize their involvement based on a 7-point bipolar scale. The six

dimensions that were included in this index were ‘‘ Unimportant-Important,’’

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‘‘ Irrelevant-Relevant,’’ ‘‘ Means nothing – Means a lot,’’ ‘‘ Worthless-Valuable,’’

‘‘ Doesn’t matter-Matters,’’ and ‘‘ Undesirable-Desirable’’ (Cronbach’s a = .88).

Gaming Disorder

Gaming disorder was measured with an adaptation of constructs from the Internet

Gaming Disorder scale (Lemmens et al., 2015), as well as with sleep regulation

questions (Perrachia & Curcio, 2018). Sample questions included, ‘‘ This game is

addictive,’’ ‘‘ IfeelIcangetawayfromthisgameatanytime,’’ ‘‘ This game

regulates my sleep cycle,’’ and ‘‘ Ihatemissingoutonresourcesinthisgame’’

(Cronbach’s a =.60).

Spending Habits (Gamer Classiﬁcation)

Spending habits (gamer classiﬁcation) were calculated with the item, ‘‘ Thinking

about the last 30 days, how much money do you think you have spent in this game?’’

As a gaming classiﬁcation scale has not been established, a 5-point scale was used to

capture estimated spending, with responses including (1) Not at all, (2) A little, (3)

A moderate amount, (4) A lot, and (5) A great deal. The following categories were

assigned to the participants on the basis of their responses: Minnow = (1), Dolphin =

(2 and 3), Whale = (4 and 5). It is worth noting that the characterizations that this

scale points to—minnow, dolphin, whale—are self-ascribed identities. Although the

participants were not asked about the terms minnows, dolphins, and whales directly,

this question and its responses were designed to correspond with the admittedly ﬂuid

but culturally engrained understanding of the terms. Hence, the classiﬁcation of type

of spending is based on self-perception for this survey as opposed to hard numbers.

This is important because spending habits and characterizations are contextual

anyway—one gamer may have the ﬁnancial ability to spend $1,000 a month, but it is

a much smaller part of their salary than it is for someone with much less ﬁnancial

means. In other words, one person’s minnow may be another person’s whale, and

given this reality, we decided to base the survey results on self-perception and

context. From this classiﬁcation, we had 276 minnows, 226 dolphins, and 92 whales,

which ﬁts the inverted pyramid structure of games that have mostly minnows and

a smaller group of whales (Bilas, 2015). It is worth noting that these spending

habit measures are self-perceived, given that (1) we were unable to conﬁrm the

participants’ spending and (2) the nature of spending has different implications

depending on a person’s ﬁnancial context.

Attitude Towards the Game

Attitude towards the game was measured by using an index of seven items.

Participants were asked about their attitude towards the game and presented with

seven pairs of items based on a semantic differential 7-point scale: ‘‘ Bad-good,’’

‘‘ Unfavorable-favorable,’’ ‘‘ Dislike-like,’’ ‘‘ Boring-interesting,’’ ‘‘ Unpleasant-

pleasant,’’ ‘‘ Unappealing-appealing,’’ and ‘‘ Unattractive-attractive’’ (Cronbach’s

a =.91).

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Attitudes Towards Advertising

Attitudes towards advertising were measured with an index of 12 item, the last three

of which were reverse coded: ‘‘ We can depend on getting truth in most advertising,’’

‘‘ Advertising’s aim is to inform the consumer,’’ ‘‘ I believe advertising is

informative,’’ ‘‘ Advertising is generally truthful,’’ ‘‘ Advertising is a reliable source

of information about the quality and performance of products,’’ ‘‘ Advertising is

truth well told,’’ ‘‘ In general, advertising presents a true picture of the product being

advertised,’’ ‘‘ I feel I’ve accurately informed after viewing most advertisements,’’

‘‘ Most advertising provides consumers with essential information,’’ ‘‘ Advertising is a

nuisance,’’ ‘‘ I do not get any information from advertising,’’ and ‘‘ Advertising

interrupts what I am doing. ’’ This was measured on a 5-point scale from 1 = Strongly

disagree to 5 = Strongly agree (Cronbach’s a = .90).

Time Spent Playing the Game

Time spent playing the game was measured by a single item: ‘‘ Thinking about the

last 30 days, how much time have you spent daily (on average) in the game?’’ This

was measured on a 5-point scale, with responses including (1) Not at all, (2) A little,

(3) A moderate amount, (4) A lot, and (5) A great deal. As with money spent, this

question was put in a contextual frame to allow players to self-assess their

commitment level: 10 hours a week may be a small commitment for someone with

few other time commitments, but a substantial commitment for others.

Watching Ads for Currency

Watching ads for currency was measured by a single item. The question was how

long the respondent would be willing to watch an ad in order to obtain in-game

currency, and the scale was from 0 to 20 min.

Results

The ﬁ rst step of this study was to determine whether there were signiﬁcant differences

in our three dependent variables of interest: amount of time spent in the game

(Table 1) willingness to watch ads (Table 2), and differences in these variables in the

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics of Time Spent in Game for the Last 30 Days by Game

Game N Mean SD

Brave Frontier 95 3.32 .11

Final Fantasy Record Keeper 102 3.09 .11

Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius 155 3.21 .09

Fire Emblem Heroes 234 3.32 .07

All games (total) 595 3.25 1.10

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four games (RQ1a and RQ1b). A one-way analysis of variance was conducted for

each of these variables. For time spent in the game over the last 30 days, no

signiﬁcant difference was found, F(3, 591) =1.28, p 4 .05, between all four games,

for which most players described their commitment as ‘‘ moderate.’’ For amount of

time spent watching ads for in-game currency, no signiﬁcant difference was found,

F(3, 536) = .50, p 4 .05, between all four games, with players answering 5 to 6 min on

average as the maximum amount of time that they would watch an ad for currency.

Therefore, despite the four independent mobile games having different themes, we

can generalize that the characteristics of the players of these RPG loot-box games, in

terms of spending habits and propensity for ad watching, were fairly consistent. This

ﬁnding also allowed us to proceed with the collapsed data from these mobile games,

knowing that they are representative of all four player types. For the ﬁrst ﬁve

hypotheses, a one-way analysis of variance was computed to compare the relevant

variables. Tukey’s HSD was used for signi ﬁcant results of the group comparisons

that followed. A p-value of 0.5 was used to determine signiﬁcance.

H1 predicted that the gamers with higher spending habits would be more likely to

hold a more positive attitude towards the game in general. A signiﬁcant difference

was found among spending habits, F(2, 587) = 3.74, p o .05. This analysis revealed

that minnows (M = 5.67, SD =92) held a signiﬁcantly less positive attitude towards

the game than dolphins did (M = 5.86, SD = .83). There were no signiﬁcant

differences between whales (M = 5.64, SD = .94) with either of the other groups.

Therefore, H1 was partially supported.

H2 predicted that the higher spending habits gamers have in the game, the more likely

they will spend more time playing the game. A signiﬁcant difference was found among

spending habits, F(2, 591) = 17.89, p o .001. Whales (M =3.72,SD =.99)were

signiﬁcantly more likely to spend more time playing the game than were minnows

(M =2.94,SD =.12)anddolphins(M =3.1,SD =1.02).Therewasnosigniﬁcant

difference between minnows and dolphins.Therefore,H2waspartiallysupported.

H3 predicted that the more substantial a gamer’s spending habit, the less likely they

would be to watch advertisements for in-game currency. A signiﬁcant difference was

Table 2

Descriptive Statistics of Willingness to Watch Advertisements for In-Game Currency

by Game

Game N Mean SD

Brave Frontier 91 6.25 7.03

Final Fantasy Record Keeper 87 6.19 6.78

Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius 142 5.28 6.90

Fire Emblem Heroes 220 5.70 6.87

All games (total) 540 5.77 6.89

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found among spending habits, F(2, 536) = 6.46, p o .01. This analysis revealed that

minnows were in fact less likely to spend time watching ads (M = 4.68, SD = 6.2)

than were dolphins (M = 6.52, SD = 7.15) or whales (M = 7.27, SD = 7.71). There

was no signiﬁcant difference between dolphins and whales in terms of their watching

habits. Therefore, H3 was not supported, as the opposite was found: Whales and

dolphins were more likely than minnows to spend time watching ads for in-game

currency.

H4 predicted that the more substantial a gamer’s spending habit, the more likely they

would be to describe having a gaming disorder. A signiﬁcant difference was found

among spending habits, F(2, 590) = 5.84, p o .01. This analysis revealed that

minnows (M = 2.96, SD = .76) had signiﬁcantly less gaming disorder than whales did

(M = 3.26, SD = .75). Dolphins (M = 3.05, SD = .66) also had signiﬁcantly less

gaming disorder than whales did (M = 3.26, SD = .75). There were no signiﬁcant

differences between minnows and dolphins. Therefore, H4 was supported.

H5 predicted that the more substantial a gamer’s spending habit, the more likely they

would be to have greater involvement in the game. A signiﬁcant difference was found

among spending habits, F(2, 575) = 8.83, p o .001. This analysis revealed that

minnows (M = 4.22, SD = 1.08) had signiﬁcantly less involvement in the game than

whales did (M = 4.61, SD = 1.09). Dolphins (M = 4.22, SD = 1.08) also had

signiﬁcantly less involvement in the game than whales did (M = 4.61, SD = 1.12).

There were no signiﬁcant differences between dolphins and whales. Therefore, H5

was supported.

H6 considered how attitudes towards the game, attitudes towards advertising,

involvement, and gaming disorder would sequentially predict in-game ad watching.

A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted (Table 3), with the ﬁrst block

controlling for the effects of demographics: gender, age, income, and marital status.

No signiﬁcance was found. For the second block, attitudes were used as the next

predictor because of the traditionally strong attitude on the behaviour continuum.

We found that stronger attitudes towards the game did not result in greater ad

watching for in-game currency. We found the same for attitudes towards advertising.

Hence H6a and H6b were not supported. Finally, in Block 3, we used the predictors

of involvement and gaming disorder and found that gaming disorder predicted ad

watching for in-game currency, whereas involvement in the game did not. Thus, H6c

was not supported but H6d was.

Discussion

In this study, we examined gamers who play RPG mobile games with a loot-box

system in terms of their spending habits and advertising attitudes. In general, in all

four games, players’ time and money spent and their willingness to watch advertising

for in-game currency remained consistent throughout, allowing us to demonstrate

that there is a level of generalizability in the way that players of RPG loot-box

mobile games respond and behave.

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A key ﬁnding of this study is that players who see themselves as the highest

spenders—whales—are also the most likely to watch advertising for in-game

currency. This expands what was reﬂected in the study by Tom et al. (2014): Heavy

spenders not only make the game more proﬁtable through their own spending, but

they also help monetize advertising. This denotes that players who are willing to

describe their ﬁnancial investment in a game as ‘‘ a great deal’’ are the sorts of players

who are most invested in every aspect of the game. It is likely that the currency that

they receive through IGA is minor in comparison with the currency that they receive

through their pocketbook, but in a sense, these players have paid for the game and

are thus committed to the game play—whatever that may entail.

Concerning player spending (minnows, dolphins, and whales), we were able to

establish that players who spend more in the game typically hold a more positive

attitude towards the game and spend more time playing the game. We anticipated

that players with little spending in the game (minnows) were more likely to spend

time watching ads to obtain game currency. Instead, we unexpectedly found that

players who spend more in the game (dolphins and whales) were in fact more likely

to watch advertisements for in-game currency. Players do not necessarily want to

watch ads for free currency, but are more willing to do so if they are more invested in

the game.

We see this demonstrated in the way that game spending affects their involvement in

the game and self-reported gaming disorder. Players who spend more in the game are

Table 3

Regression Analysis of Predictors for Amount of Time Willing to Spend Watching Ads

for In-Game Currency

Variable

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Standard beta Standard beta Standard beta

Block 1: Demographics

Gender: Female -.02 -.01 -.02

Marital status: Married .08 .07 .08

Income .02 .02 .03

Age -.10 -.09 -.10

Block 2: Attitudes

Attitude towards game --- .06 .05

Attitude towards advertising --- .05 .02

Block 3: Gaming tendencies

Involvement --- --- .02

Gaming disorder --- --- .13*

Incremental change in R

(%) --- 0.7 1.7*

(%) 1.0 1.7 3.4

Total adjusted R

(%) 0.1 0.0 1.2

N = 365

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typically more likely to report gaming disorder and are more highly involved in the

game. Those who spend the most money in the game (whales) are mostly like to

report gaming disorder and being involved players.

However, there were several unexpected ﬁndings related to advertising. Unlike

previous research that describes the attitude-behaviour continuum in response to

advertising and gaming inducements, in our study, attitudes towards advertising and

towards the game were not at all predictive of whether people were willing to spend

time watching advertising. This suggests that attitude alone may not always be the

best predictor of ad watching. In addition, we found that the involvement of gamers

was not predictive of how likely they are to watch ads for currency. It could be that—

as Turner et al. (2018) reported—the risk factors of gambling such as being

unmarried, having a lower income, and, ironically, being employed—correspond to

those who are most invested in ad watching. Whales may not, after all, be those with

the most money, but those who perceive themselves as spending the most money and

thus are most interested in supplementing it by whatever means necessary. They do

so more willingly (1) if they lack dependents who might be jeopardized by their

spending and (2) if it is only a small amount at a time.

This result also reﬂects the ﬁnding of Zendle et al. (2019) regarding the lack of

motivation to proﬁt from loot-box gaming. Rather, the potential of social pressure to

promote both spending and ad watching seems likely, as gamers are motivated to

keep up with the rest of their community.

That said, gaming disorder alone predicted how likely gamers were to watch ads.

This ﬁnding implies an association between the nature of wanting to acquire more

in-game currency and ad watching. Notably, in this genre of gaming, with such a

strong association with gambling (Brooks & Clark, 2019; Turner et al., 2018), it is

interesting to see the potential implications of advertisers targeting a vulnerable

public, players with gaming disorders who are enjoying a game type that ma y

constitute gambling. Because gambling addictions typically suggest a lack of

volitional control, in order to earn the currency in the games that they are addicted

to, gamers may be willing to engage in behaviour that may normally be considered

annoying (e.g., ad watching).

Mobile gamers must play more or spend more—or both—in order to reach certain

objectives (Alha et al., 2016), and one can see how this gameplay system would be

especially appealing to those who self-report gaming disorder. If likened to

substance-related addictions as suggested by Kuss and Grifﬁths (2012), achieving

objectives or gatherin g items or units is the ‘‘ buzz’’ that keeps players motivated.

Together, these observations indicate a rather complex relationship that loot-box

gamers have in terms of mobile games, their involvement in these games, and the

central nature of advertising in their gaming social circles (Zendle et al., 2019). The

moderating effect of involvement indicates that attitudes alone may not be sufﬁcient

to predict behaviour in the traditional sense. Our ﬁndings not only undermine this

traditional notion, but they also show that it may be the gambling nature of the game

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that predicts behaviour, as playing it is equivalent to gambling for a chance to get

something rare that players want in the game. The power of involvement as shown in

our study may indicate that the gamers are more intent on playing for the gambling

component of the game as opposed to other content that the game offers.

Although we expected to show that casual players would take advantage of ads to

make up for money that they are not willing to spend in the game, we found the

inverse: Those who spent the most money were in fact more involved in such games

and were more willing to watch advertisements. Thi s ﬁnding may suggest that

because of their involvement in the game, disordered gamers will ﬁnd alternative

ways to get just ‘‘ one more roll of the dice’’ to earn currency in order to open more

loot boxes.

This leaves us to consider whether mobile games may be multidimensional in ways

that can be explored. The strong association between involvement and gaming

disorder in this study seems to suggest a lack of volitional behavio ur. We wonder

whether this in fact reveals that the different dimensions of the game design should

be considered. These games have a component that involves adventure and goal-

oriented themes like most other games. Gamers may derive satisfaction when

ﬁnishing objectives. However, the role of gaming disorder in our study suggests the

possibility that users are instead drawn to the gambling mechanism from which they

derive their satisfaction with the game (Macey & Hamari, 2018). This offers a

uniquely different proposition about how and why advertising may work in these

games.

Limitations and Future Research

Although we feel that this study makes a substantial contribution to our

understanding of both advertising and mobile gaming, it is worth noting a few

limitations. First, as this was a survey study, responses related to gaming disorder,

spending habits, and attitudes were all self-reported by respondents. That said, in the

case of spending habits and time commitment, there are important reasons to root

our research in self-report given that the characterizations of spending habits are self-

ascribed anyway. Second, we used a 5-point scale to assess player perceptions of their

spending with the expectation of discernible differences in the categories—

hypothesizing initially, for example, that there might be a difference between major

whales (‘‘ all-in’’ mentality) and minor whales (spending tied to a high-cost

rationalization (e.g., ‘‘ I’m paying for a video game a month’’ ). This did not turn

out to be the case. It could be that by having a scale that did not match the eventual

categories, we delimited some of the thought processes of the participants. Third, as

the respondents were 90.6% men, it would be difﬁcult to generalize the ﬁndings to

women or other genders for this form of gaming. Finally, as this survey was posted

on Reddit, responden ts who answered the survey would tend to be motivated to

learn more about the game by communicating with other like-minded gamers

by postin g and sharing information on the message boards. Therefore, it is possible

that the sample captured may not be entirely representative of the entire gaming

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population. Casual players, for example, may be less likely to visit Reddit sub-

threads on the game. Future research should examine these sub-threads for the

themes indicated in this study: ad congruency, issues of gaming disorder, ﬁnancial

spending, and time commitment.

Implications

The implications of this research are multifold. The main theoretical implication is

that it calls into question the idea that attitude can always be a strong predictor of

behaviour. Gamers’ attitudes towards advertisements were not fairly predictive of

the way they approach advertising, which is interesting at best. This may also be for

circumstantial reasons. Ducoffe (1995) identiﬁes advertising as having value both in

information and entertainment; there may be a new dimension that advertising

provides: currency, or a trade-off of time for currency. In addition, watching ads has

effectiveness and value as an alternative to IGA, which has lost authenticity and

effectiveness over the years.

There are also some practical implications to consider. First, in a world where

advertising has been dominated by ad blockers, multiscreens, and other avoidance

behaviours, it is still possible to ﬁnd individuals willing to trade their time to watch

advertisements in return for perks. Our study shows a way that advertisers can reach

people who have the willingness and desire to spend money, as paying players are

more willing than non-paying players to watch ads. Second, the function of mobile

games can likely determine the way in which ad watching is approached. This

research outlines that the intensity of gaming disorder can create a halo effect

regarding objects associated with the game. Games that create large gaming disorder

measures could presumably serve as a gateway to creating ‘‘ junkies’’ willing to watch

ads to satisfy their desire to advance further in the game (Wardle, 2019). Although

the propensity of ad watching is greater, we do not know if attention is greater in

such insta nces. Third, it may be worth investigating whether advertis ements are more

persuasive for involved gamers than normal ads are.

It may be that video gaming is simply a vehicle in which such gambling practices can

prey upon the vulnerable; hence, it is not inextricably connected to problematic

gaming (Macey & Hamari, 2018). Nonetheless, this study showcases that, far from

mediating the role of spending in loot-box games, advertising further encourages the

highest-spending players.

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*******

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Submitted March 30, 2020; accepted January 6, 2021. This article was peer reviewed.

All URLs were available at the time of submission.

For correspondence: Samuel M. Tham, Department of Journalism and Media

Communication, Colorado State Universi ty, Fort Collins, CO 80523.

E-mail: [email protected]

Competing interests: None reported (all authors).

Ethics approval: The Appalachian State University Institutional Review Board

approved this project, ‘‘ Monetization in mob ile gaming: Flow Theory in considering

advertising for in-game currency,’’ on January 6, 2017 (approval #17-0184).

Acknowledgements: No funding sources were used for this research. The authors

would like to thank the subreddits /r/FFBraveExvius/, /r/BraveFrontier/, /r/

FFRecordKeeper/, and /r/FireEmblemHeroe s. Many thanks to the community that

participated in this study.

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