Is Your Shopping Cart Empty? Factors Affecting Expected Enjoyment and Purchase of Video Games

Abstract

Overall males and females play video games in similar numbers (ESA, 2017) but play and prefer different games. The features of games that appeal to different gamers are relatively unexplored. Females report preferring fantasy based games and female gamers rate the availability of a female protagonist as a play option very important in their game experience. It is also well documented that video game covers often depict sexualized females (Lynch et al, 2017). We explored the effect of genre, gender of character on cover, and sexualization of cover character on ratings of expected enjoyment for self and others. Participants viewed a series of covers that varied on these variables and rated for how much they thought others who varied by age (college, high school, middle school) and gender would enjoy the game.