An empirical investigation into the drivers of re-subscription in massively multiplayer online games: a commitment trust theory approach

This is a relationship marketing PhD which is examining, using CommitmentTrust Theory, the customer decision to maintain subscribing to a massivelymultiplayer online game. This PhD is not an examination of initial purchasedecision, but of the ongoing, post-purchase, customer retention. In keepingwith the contextual nature of Commitment Trust Theory, this study examinesthe antecedents of the re-subscription decision and their effect on the keymediating variables of Commitment and Trust and modifies the framework tomodel the subscription based nature of the business situation and thecontext. The key contribution of this research to the literature is theapplication of the Commitment Trust framework to a customer’s ongoingrelationship with a massively multiplayer online game entertainment product;a situation and context which has not been examined in the literature.An online questionnaire survey was used to collect a sample of data from2226 massively multiplayer online game customers. This sample data wasthen analysed using Structural Equation Modelling to test the relationshiphypotheses between the constructs proposed by Commitment Trust Theory.Furthermore, hypotheses examining the effect of relevant demographic andcategorical variables upon the constructs of Commitment Trust Theory werealso tested and analysed using appropriate statistical techniques.Evidence was found to support the Commitment Trust Theory framework in amassively multiplayer online game subscription situation, with the study’smodel explaining 85.7% of the variance of the sample data, with evidencepresented to support the key mediating variable approach to modelling thecircumstances. The study, based on examining the effect size of theconstruct relationships using standardised regression weights then givesevidence that a more parsimonious model which reduces the number ofconstructs from 16 to six (a 70% reduction in complexity) would still producea model explaining 85.3% of the variance of the sample data (a 0.4% loss inexplanatory power).The study concludes that the key antecedent constructs in the sample for acustomer’s renewal of an online gaming subscription are current satisfaction,past satisfaction, the amount of game capital they have within the game andthe metagame benefits they derive from the game. The study supports a keymediating variable structure, but provides evidence that while Commitmentand Trust are both relevant and statistically significant, a more efficientexplanation examining the effect size of the relationships as well, wouldfocus on the antecedents of Commitment rather than Trust, as Trust and itsantecedents were not found to have a significant effect size on the overalldecision to re-subscribe.