VR gaming - New sensation or premium gimmick
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2021
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Information and Service Management (ISM)
Language
en
Pages
26 + 14
Series
Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) gaming has developed during the recent years as a viable alternative for regular video games. However, VR head mounted displays (HMDs) have not managed to appeal to the mainstream gaming public on a large scale. Previous studies have shown that VR gaming can be more immersive and satisfying than regular gaming but expensive HMDs and poor quality in offered games often make the experience less than optimal. Nausea-like sensation, cybersickness, experienced by some individuals while immersed in VR games is also a nuisance that is difficult to eliminate entirely. By utilising willingness-to-pay (WTP) principle and a multiple statement model created to chart respondents motivators for gaming, a survey questionnaire was created for the purpose of this thesis to find out how much gaming consumers are willing to pay for a VR HMD at the moment and whether gamers motivated by a certain dimension like challenge or competition are more likely to pay more than other gamers. Over two weeks, 134 valid responses were gathered through convenience sampling and online forums with gamer users. The WTP varied greatly as some respondents either owned VR HMDs already or were willing to pay large sums for them, while others were willing to invest very little if at all to experience VR gaming. The average WTP proved to be 400 € but a high variance combined with reliability issues for an open-form WTP statement renders it to be more of an approximation. Through multiple linear regression it became also evident, that different gaming motivator values cannot be used to predict WTP valuations. Those respondents who were willing to pay the most for a VR HMD praised the technological prowess and future potential of the platform, whereas those who were not willing for a sizable investment doubted the quality of the current devices and VR games, which were deemed simple and dull. Supporting question on VR usage revealed that only one third of the respondents who already owned a VR HMD used it at least once a week. Cybersickness was occasionally experienced by some respondent but it did not feature as a common factor in WTP justifications. With the insight provided by these survey results, it can be safely noted that VR developers have to concentrate on making VR games with higher quality to pair with the developed technology that the HMDs already feature. Although the survey and its analyses have its limitations, the sentiment of the consumers clearly indicates a demand for better content before any mainstream success for VR gaming can be achieved.Description
Thesis advisor
Tuunainen, VirpiKeywords
virtual reality, gaming, consumers, WTP