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ABSTRACT
This study tests a consumer behavioral model on Taiwanese adolescents and young adults engaging in online gaming. The major focus is on how these consumers transfer the value of their experiences and lifestyles to satisfaction, which may assist in the further exploration of the specific consumption behavior characteristics of adolescents and young adults, particularly with regard to their social functioning and deep-seated psychological needs. Using a two-stage sampling design process, data were collected on a total of 211 consumers, with the statistical analysis methods adopted for this study including a reliability test, confirmatory factor analysis, and LISREL analysis. Our results indicate that causal relationships hold in certain experiential value and lifestyle constructs. In particular, two experiential value constructs (social function, empathy and escapism) and two lifestyle constructs (pursuit of recreation and taste for life, reference group) play major roles that affect satisfaction among adolescents and young adults in online gaming in Taiwan.
INTRODUCTION
Since online gaming, as a global phenomenon, has become extremely popular among adolescents and young adults over recent years, it has become clear that these particular groups are fascinated by the concept and gain a great deal of satisfaction from engaging in these games. Through a variety of role-play scenarios, these groups can realize daring accomplishments that they could never hope to achieve in the real world and can, in some ways, significantly raise their self-esteem.
Research into online gaming consumer behavior has received considerable attention over recent years, particularly with regard to adolescents and young adults, with prior studies having discussed various aspects of consumer behavior, including innovativeness (Rogers, 1995), impulse buying (Rook & Fisher, 1995), and information search (Srinivasan & Ratchford, 1991). Nevertheless, few studies have focused on examination of the dimensions of experiential value and lifestyles, in terms of their impact on satisfaction.
Following the initial concept of the value of experience to consumers-as proposed by Holbrook (1994)-Woodruff (1997) proposed a theoretical hierarchical model of experiential value. Although experiential value, and its impact on satisfaction, has been empirically studied and verified with regard to experiences with Internet shopping (Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Mathwick et al., 2001; Lee & Overby, 2004), it has seldom been applied to consumer behavior with regard to online gaming.
The constructs of experiential...