Abstract
This study aimed to investigate mobile game addiction through perceived game value. According to this aim, the relationship between mobile game addiction and consumption values was tested. From 500 e-survey forms, 386 forms were accepted for analysis. To measure perceived value, Sheth, Newman, and Gross's consumption values model was adapted. Lemmens, Valkenburg, and Peter's game addiction model were used in this study to measure mobile game addiction. With the help of canonical correlation analysis, it was tested whether there was a significant relationship between perceived value and mobile game addiction. Consequently, it was found that perceived values were significantly related to mobile game addiction. Especially, functional, emotional, and conditional values had a strong correlation with mobile game addiction. This study provides some evidence that perceived game value can influence game addiction.
TopIntroduction
The rise of mobile game market can’t be ignored that every developments in mobile game market attracts new global and leading brands (Jiang et.al., 2015). For example, game market had $99.6 billion (Bn) in revenues by 2016 and mobile gaming had higher revenue than PC games globally at the same year. Concole gaming had $30.8 Bn, PC gaming had 31.9 Bn and mobile gaming had $36.9 Bn in the share of total gaming industry in 2016 (CGA, 2016). In 2018, mobile gaming market became the biggest gaming market globally. With the help of mobile devices such as smartphone, there have been 2.2. billion players in mobile gaming market (Newzoo, 2018). Then, the birth and growth of mobile game is related with mobile phone. Because mobile games got available when second generation (2G) mobile phones appeared in the market. 3G expanded mobile game market through its new technology. Nowadays, 4G is serving in mobile communication industry and mobile games can be bought and played by more people globally (Kim, 2013:43).
The definition of mobile game is mainly based on mobile devices such as smartphones. In other words, the literature generally defined mobile games as one type of game that can be played by mobile phones or devices (Mäyrä, 2015:1). In this context, the history showed that Tetris was the first mobile device that people played a video game. The first mobile games were variant of Tetris. Then, Nokia presented Snake game with phones and mobile games firstly joined into mobile phone platform (Handjam, n.d.). According to Kaye (2014), the historical development of mobile games can be explained as Table 1.
Table 1.
A Brief History of Mobile Games
| Years | Important Events |
| 1997 | The world meets the first mobile game through Nokia – SNAKE by 1997. |
| 1999 | Gameloft begins making mobile games for phones/smartphones. |
| 2000 | Jamdat is founded and begins to make mobile games. |
| 2001 | The year of 2001 makes new opportunities for mobile gaming industry. Java One Conference in 4th June provides J2ME for phones. Then, Sonic the Hedgehog joins into mobile gaming industry by June 2001 and Brew joins into mobile gaming industry by September 2001. |
| 2002 | Nokia 3410 and Siemens M50 get J2ME. |
| 2003 | Nokia N-Gage gives Splinter Cell in December 2003. In June 2003, Jamdat Bowling becomes so popular mobile game in US gaming market. |
| 2004 | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time gets into mobile platform in January 2004. Motorola Razr gets so popular by 2004. |
| 2005 | EA mobile buys Jamdat for $680m in December 2005. Sorrent and Macrospace signs for a merger and creates GluMobile in June 2005. |
| 2006 | The Gizmondo (handheld game console) goes bankrupt in February 2006. Digital Chocolate (mobile game makers) gets $22.5m. |
| 2007 | Steve Jobs introduced iphone to the market and it firstly goes on sale in the US. By September 2007, iphone users meet Tap Tap Revolution for the first time. |
| 2008 | Android market welcomes in 2008 and APP store opens with 500 apps by July 2008. |
| 2009 | Developers begin to sell App Purchases with Apple. In April 2009, Doodle Jump joins into mobile gaming market and Angry Birds occurs by December 2009. |
| 2010 | The Pure Android Nexus One goes on sale by Google in 2010. Ipad goes on sale in April 2010. Flight control and Plants vs Zombies get into App Store in February 2010. Infinity Blade gets into App Store in December 2010. |
| 2011 | The Ipad 2, The Samsung Galaxy S2 and Kindle Fire (Amazon) tablet join into the mobile market. |
| 2012 | Nexus 7 tablet is released by Google and Ipad Mini tablet is released. Candy Crush Saga is released on İOS. |
| 2013 | HTC One (Blackberry Z10) launches. EA releases Plants and Zombies 2. |
Source: adapted from Kaye, 2014:5-10