Determinants of adoption of mobile games under mobile broadband wireless access environment

Abstract

Rapid advancements in technology and changes in cost have made the game industry a profitable area. Recently, Mobile Broadband Wireless Access technology-based (MBWA) games have been introduced into the marketplace. They are superior to current mobile games in terms of transmission speed and price and to older online games that have limited mobility. Since MBWA technologies, such as High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), Wireless Broadband (WiBro), and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) have been developed, customers can enjoy games whenever and wherever they like. We decided to analyze the factors that influence potential users' adoption of MBWA games using an extension of TAM. Most previous game-related studies lack a comprehensive approach to both technological and psychological aspects of game adoption and do not reflect a variety of consumer preferences. We therefore extended TAM to include an emotion variable and measured the moderating effects of gender, age, and prior experience on game adoption. Overall, the results revealed that the effect of perceived enjoyment was very important but that usefulness did not influence an individual's attitude. In addition, we also find that age can be key moderator of game acceptance. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.