The Effect of Pop-up Advertisements, Focusing on Players’ Intention to Download New Games

Abstract

The advancement of online gaming is an extraordinary evolution that occurred during the past era. At present, most game developers and marketers promote their new games through different types of advertisements displayed in existing online gaming channels. This is still an upcoming trend, especially in freemium games. The main objective of this research is to assess the significance of ad-related attributes and the attitude of players regarding their intention to download new games promoted in advertisements. This study assists game developers and marketers to improve the promotion of new games by assessing the impact of characteristics of pop-up advertisements that would affect the player’s intention to download a new game. Infotainment, personalization, and attitude toward the advertisement are taken into consideration to assess the download intention of players. The impact of ad-related characteristics has been identified through an experimental model followed by a survey targeting the age group 18 to 25, considering 386 undergraduates belonging to Generation Z of the Sri Lankan university population, and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Research studies on pop-up advertising and the download intention of players have not been conducted in a comprehensive context in the past studies. According to the results, infotainment, attitude, and personalization, all have a significant impact on download intention. Furthermore, the findings suggest that infotainment is the most significant factor in predicting download intention.