The mobile games industry has become one of the most popular areas of mobile application development over the past five years. In-app purchases (IAP) are extremely valuable for developers/publishers, and they are interested in promoting them to users. However, previous research revealed differences between drivers of IAP for users from various countries. Authors compare drivers of Russian players and other emerging countries users. The design of the study consists of in-depth interviews with Russian users, followed by a quantitative survey that helps to identify the main drivers of in-app purchases. We found differences in the significance and the list of the drivers for Russian players. Cluster analysis allowed us to identify diverse segments with different priorities, so to be successful, game developers should dive into the peculiarities of the behavior of players in a particular country.

mobile games, in-app purchases, emerging countries, Russia.

The mobile games industry has become one of the most popular areas of mobile application development over the past 5 years (Hamid, Suzianti, 2020). This is one of the few industries that has been positively affected by the COVID-19 lockdown. According to GameAnalytics and Statista, the depth and time spent in games increased by 62%, in turn, this affected the number and frequency of internal purchases made daily, which increased from 5 to 30% (Game Analytics, 2020; Statista, 2022).

According to recent studies, large emerging markets such as Brazil, Indonesia, India, Russia and Vietnam are experiencing a high growth rate in attracting paying users (Appsflyer, 2021). The factors influencing the purchase can differ between representatives of different countries, e.g. for Chinese users, the most important drivers are the degree of satisfaction with the game and its quality, for Indonesian users — costs and the desire to continue the game (Lim et.al., 2015). The mobile games market entered the world’s top five in terms of downloads of smartphone games in the first half of 2021, with more than 1.5 billion downloads, trailing behind China, Brazil, the United States, and India. For developers/publishers, users who generate income directly through internal purchases are extremely valuable — the average profit from each such user is $37.9 — $70.3 (Data.ai, 2022).

The spending of Russian players on the purchase of mobile games amounted to 949 rubles per purchase, which was 46% higher than in 2020. This also had a positive effect on the increase in the average check for domestic purchases, which showed an increase of 96% in just one year and amounted to 836.9 rubles (Data.ai, 2022). Statistics point towards the attractiveness of the Russian segment, but most of the research on identifying factors affecting purchases in mobile games so far has been carried out for other markets.

The purpose of this study is to identify drivers that influence preferences in APP purchases in mobile games by Russian users and compare them with users from China, Indonesia, Taiwan, and India.

The methodology of the study consists of two parts: in-depth interviews that help to identify the drivers of making internal purchases in mobile games by Russian users, followed by a quantitative survey with factor and cluster analysis.

Over the past 5 years, the mobile games industry has become one of the most popular branches in mobile application development (Hamid et. al, 2020). With the popularity of mobile games, the revenue of this segment is growing from 2019 to 2022, the increase was 51%, reaching $ 103.5 billion (Statista, 2022).

On average, each user spends 10% of the total time on their mobile phones or tablets on games. it can be from 2 to 5 games per device in a month (Statista, 2021). According to Data.ai (2022), hyper casual games dominate the mobile games market, the most popular genres in 2021 by the number of downloads were:

• Action (hyper casual) — 4.01 billion.
• Puzzles — 3.78 billion.
• Simulation (hyper casual) — 3.15 billion.
• Children’s games (hyper casual) — 2.57 billion
• Driving simulation — 1.63 billion
• Games .io (hyper casual) — 1.41 billion.
• Runners (action) — 1.20 billion.
• Sports simulations — 1.10 billion
• Simulation of pets — 0.90 billion.

China, the USA and Japan are among the top 3 countries in terms of generated profits, in 2021, income from these countries accounted for more than half of the spending on mobile games of the entire market. For example, Chinese users spent more than $56 billion, users from the USA — $43 billion, Japan — $20 billion (Data.ai, 2022).

According to Statista (2022), more than half of mobile game users are people over 34 years old, 55% of whom are women, 45% are men. 43% of the female audience and 38% of the male audience play more than 5 times a week. Their main motives for playing mobile games are:

1. Stress relief.
2. The desire to “kill” time.
3. Immersing yourself in another world or the life of a character.
4. The desire to achieve and accomplish something difficult.
5. Improving some of your own skills.
6. Communication with other people.
7. Acquiring a unique experience.
8. Communication with interests that users are passionate about outside of the game.

As was discussed earlier, there are cultural differences related to the popularity of different genres in a particular region. For example, it was discovered that in cultures that are more characterized by collectivism, have a high indicator of power distance and femininity there are more downloads of family applications and educational games. People from cultures that are more focused on building long-term relationships are interested in verbal educational games, and people from cultures with a short-term orientation download RPG (role playing) game more (App Magic, 2019). According to the App Magic (2019), in the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, the top 3 most popular genres of mobile games include: hyper-casual, arcade, puzzles; in Russia and Korea — they are hyper-casual, arcade and shooters; in Japan — party fights, hyper-casual, three in a row (game consists of a table or grid of elements, and the player’s task is to manipulate the elements in such a way that the template combinations set by the game match, and after the condition is met, the collected elements disappear); in China — arcade games, shooters, MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game- a computer game in which the genre of role-playing games is combined with the genre of mass online games); in Taiwan — MMORPG, party fights, hyper-casual mobile games. More details are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. 

The number of downloads of mobile games by genre in major markets, 2019. Source: App Magic, 2019

According to Data.ai (2022) 43% of mobile game revenue was generated by internal purchases. Even though the average cost of attracting a user is $86.61 (Android: $86.72, IOS: $77.45), for developers/publishers such users are extremely valuable — the average daily profit from each such user is about $37.9–70.3 (Game Analytics, 2020; Data.ai, 2022). The cost of attracting a user varies depending on the region, for example: in North America — $112.22 with a conversion of 3.4%, in Europe — $56.15 with a conversion of 2.6%, in Latin America — $27.13 with a conversion of 1.8%, in the Asia-Pacific region — $67.68 with a conversion of 1.6% (Liftoff, 2019).

In Russia the mobile games segment in 2021 amounted to 76.5 billion rubles (+14%). By the number of downloads, the most popular genres were hyper casual games, and by revenue RPGs and strategy games. Millennials, 25-34 years old, are the most likely to make internal purchases in mobile games. Men bring in 5.5 times more income from in-app purchases than women. Also, most often, users play mobile games at home — 95% of respondents, in public transport — 46% and at work — 34% (My.Games, 2021; Statista, 2020).

In order to identify the drivers influencing the making of in-app purchases in mobile games by Russian users, we have conducted field research in the form of in-depth interviews, and online survey, the purpose of which is to confirm the reliability of assumptions.

The first qualitative research includes 6 in-depth interviews, the purpose of which was to identify the drivers that influence the desire to make in-app purchases in mobile games by Russian users. The sample includes residents of cities from 18 to 44 years old, who are active users of mobile games and have experience in making in-app purchases.

The guide interview had 4 parts and 12 questions related to the experience of using mobile games and making in-app purchases:

1) introduction — the profile of respondent and their preferences in mobile games: age, place of residence, occupation, position, level of education, favorite games and genres, reasons for interest in the listed games, where did they learn about the games.

2) The description of experience of making internal purchases — the respondent describes their last case of making internal purchases, the emotions associated with making an internal purchase, the frequency and examples of games where they make in-apps.

3) Factors influencing the making of internal purchases in mobile games — which drivers are important to respondents and why.

4) Comparison with the identified factors of respondents from other countries — if there are drivers that were not mentioned by the respondent from Table 1 — the respondent specifies how important the presented criteria are to them.

The second part of the research was an online survey in Google Forms. The questions were related to the assessment of the importance of the drivers of making internal purchases identified in the first step. The first part of the survey consists of questions concerning respondent profile and experience in in-app purchases, the second part was about preferences in games and why the user made in-app purchases. The third part included 33 questions about different situations in games and readiness to make purchases. A factor analysis was made to reveal the drivers of in-app purchases. A cluster analysis was performed, which helped to identify user segments and develop recommendations for publishers and game developers. The sample for the survey: residents of cities of Russia, from 18 to 44 years old, active users of mobile games who have experience in making in-app purchases. Facebook, Instagram, and VK social networks were used to collect data among game developers and gaming communities.

The content analysis of the interviews identified several drivers, which positively affect the likelihood of making internal purchases:

1. Time-limited offer) — a condition when the offer of an internal purchase is limited in time
2. Honesty — fair terms of the transaction, when the game offers the purchase of the necessary number of resources, diamonds or game currency, the developers do not aim to force the user to constantly make purchases.
3. Involvement is a high level of interest in the game, the desire to continue playing it in the future.
4. Quality — the quality of the game itself, the absence of bugs, excellent gameplay, and design.
5. Monetary value is the value perceived by the user, related to the ratio of the purchase price and its usefulness during the game.
6. Availability of free promotion — free reward that motivates the user.
7. Diversity — providing different options for improving characters, additional skins that can diversify both game characters and the game space itself.
8. The value of time is the value perceived by the user, related to the ratio of the purchase price and the time that will remain if the purchase is made.
9. Developer support — the desire to support and give developers a game they liked.
10. Uniqueness or desire to stand out — the ability to stand out from other characters or competitors by making an internal purchase.
11. Aesthetics — satisfaction of your own desire to improve your character or game space.
12. Social interaction is a value perceived by the user, associated with the social orientation of the game, community, competitiveness.
13. Loyalty — the user’s willingness to continue the session in the game for a long time and their willingness to recommend it to other users.
14. The value of the purchase and its criticality is the value perceived by the user associated with the need to make an internal purchase, when there is no opportunity to uncover the plot or even continue the game without making a purchase.

The frequency analysis shows that the driver most often mentioned by respondents was related to engagement in the game (5 out of 6 respondents). 4 out of 6 respondents think that: quality, monetary value, the value of time are important factors for in-app purchases. 3 out of 6 participants were motivated by time-limited offers, honesty, and diversity. 2 out of 6 respondents noted the availability of free incentives, uniqueness or desire to stand out, social interaction, loyalty, the value of the purchase itself and its criticality. And only 1 respondent identified the opportunity to support developers and aesthetics as drivers for in-app purchases.

On the basis of conducted interviews 5 hypotheses were developed:

• H1: The drivers influencing the making of in-app purchases in mobile games by Russian users differ from the drivers of users from other analyzed countries
• H2: Monetary value is one of the most important factors of making internal purchases in mobile games by Russian players
• H3: The quality of the game affects the making of an in-app purchase
• H4: Social interaction affects the making of an in-app purchase
• H5: Loyalty affects the making of an in-app purchase in mobile games by Russian players.

In total, we had 325 respondents to the questionnaire. The profiles of respondents: 56.9% played mobile games every day, 24.3% played at least once a week, 6.8% played at least once a month, 10.5% played less than once a month and 1.5% didn’t play mobile games at all. 225 respondents made in-app purchases in mobile games: at least once a month — 43.1%, 38.2% made internal purchases several times per month, 17.8% of respondents made IAPs at least once a week and only 0.9% spend on purchases in games every day.

38.7% of respondents spend from 201-500 rubles in mobile games for each internal purchase, slightly fewer respondents 36.9% spend 501-1000 rubles., 19% — up to 200 rubles., and 5.3% spend from 1001-2000 rubles. Puzzles and riddles turned out to be the most popular genres, followed by role-playing games, shooters and strategies, and card games. The top 5 motivating factors for making internal purchases (in descending order) were aesthetic value (improving the appearance of a character, weapons, game space), the need to purchase additional time or moves or special hints, improving combat qualities, the desire to possess unique artifacts, the desire to get rid of advertising.

According to socio-demographic characteristics of respondents who made internal purchases in mobile games, 44% of women and 56% of men passed the survey. Most respondents live in Moscow and the Moscow region — as much as 73.3%, 16.4% — live in St. Petersburg, 5.8% — other cities with a population of more than 1 million, 2.2% — large cities with a population of 200 thousand — 1 million people and small cities with a population of up to 200 thousand people each. Most respondents (78.7%) work, 17.3% combine work and studies, 3.1% do not work and do not study, and only 0.9% are just studying.

The factor analysis was made using the method of principal components with orthogonal rotation (Varimax). The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is 0.924, which indicates a high level of reliability of the variables selected for analysis, the measure of the adequacy of the Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin sample is 0.766, which indicates that the sample is suitable for analysis. Also, the Barlett sphericity criterion indicates that the hypothesis of sphericity of data can be rejected at 99% significance level. 10 factors were selected which described 80.4% of variances.

The identified drivers can be interpreted as follows:

1. Satisfaction with creative potential — the opportunity to stand out from other characters or competitors by making an internal purchase.
2. Variety of offers — providing different options for improving characters, additional skins that can diversify both game characters and the game space itself.
3. The crucialness of the purchase is the value perceived by the user, associated with the need to make an in-app purchase, when without making a purchase there is no opportunity to uncover the plot or even continue the game.
4. Utility for the player — the usefulness of an in-app purchase perceived by the user.
5. Engagement — a high level of interest in the game, the desire to continue playing it in the future.
6. Quality — the quality of the game itself, not only the absence of bugs, but also excellent gameplay, design, and plot.
7. Willingness to continue the game — the user’s willingness to continue or resume the session in the game for a long time.
8. Risks — external risks independent of users- anti-driver, limiting the possibility of making internal purchases or continuing the game.
9. Developer support- the desire to support the developers of the game that users like.
10. Value or usefulness of the purchase — perception of the value of the internal purchase by the user, an assessment of the usefulness of its acquisition for the game.

Some factors that were identified during the theoretical research and interviews appeared in the results of factor analysis. For example, factors such as a time-limited offers, honesty, monetary value, the availability of free incentives, the value of time, aesthetics and the presence of social interaction were not directly highlighted.

As the factor analysis shows, the drivers influencing in-app purchases by Russian users differ from such in representatives of other countries that were considered earlier, which confirms the first hypothesis. For example, Russian players do not focus on the price like users from Indonesia and China, they also do not care about the possibility of social interaction and communication with other players, as, for example, players from Taiwan, etc. Russian players also value quality and the intention to continue the game. The unique drivers are the assessment of the utility of the purchase, the desire to support the developers of your favorite game, the necessity of the purchase, the availability of a variety of offers and the opportunity to stand out and create a unique c or game space.

Developers should consider the unique features of Russian mobile game players to promote games and in-app purchases. Drivers such as the quality of the game, interest in the game and the desire to continue sessions are necessary even for games whose purpose is not to generate profit through internal purchases, but drivers related to the variety of offers, the criticality of the purchase and the opportunity for users to realize their creative abilities and ideas can be used to improve mobile games and integrate internal shopping. Since these drivers can directly affect the player’s interest, which means increasing loyalty to the game, motivating donations to developers, which means improving LTV (Life Time Value = Lifetime (the total period in the game since the beginning of its use) and ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paid User= Revenue (revenue) / Paying Users (number of paying players) indexes.

To test hypotheses 2, 3, 4, and 5, we conducted a regression analysis that would illustrate the influence of the identified factors on the dependent variable — making an internal purchase. The analysis was carried out on all observations that were included in the survey (325). It is worth noting that the adjusted R^2 is 0.592, the Durbin-Watson criterion is 2.197, which indicates the absence of autocorrelation. Regression results are presented in table 2.

The regression coefficients show that at the proper level of significance the quality of the game negatively affects the purchase, which rejects the H3 hypothesis. In contrast, social interaction and loyalty have a positive effect on the dependent variable, which confirms the hypotheses H4 and H5.

Regression analysis illustrates a significant positive impact of the following drivers on making an internal purchase: criticality, variety of offers, special offer, honesty, willingness to continue the game. Risks and developer support also have a positive impact on the dependent variable, but these results are not significant.

Cluster analysis.

To develop recommendations for developers and publishers of mobile games, we conducted a cluster analysis, which would allow us to identify sample segments with special requests. Cluster analysis was made by K-means method. The optimal number of clusters is 5: for the 1 cluster there are 68 observations, for the second – 94, for the third – 25, for the fourth – 5, and the last cluster consists of 32 users. ANOVA variance analysis was made to understand differences between clusters. The description of clusters can be seen in the Table 3.

Thus, we see that even within the same country, the preferences of different segments of players differ. Therefore, it should be emphasized that although there are common patterns within one culture, developers should look deeper and find target audiences, adapting to their needs.

Socio-demographic characteristics (age, income, gender), genres, and drivers can be used by developers and marketers creating promotion campaigns aimed at attracting new players. The motives for making in-app purchases can be used to create attractive plots, visuals, messages, CTA (Call to Action). For example, active players may be attracted by videos that illustrate a variety of offers, the possibility of customizing their character or weapons; erudite segment may be interested in a high-quality display of gameplay and detailed text descriptions of the game’s logic.

In addition, mobile game publishers and developers should pay attention to:

1. “Active users”, who bring more profit, can be interested in the design and plot of the game: a lot of characters, weapons, the ability to interact with other players, so that they can stand out from competitors and stress their uniqueness through their character, which can also be used as positioning and promotion of the game.
2. For “rational players”, utility is important, making an internal purchase should free them from performing monotonous work, however, you should not abuse the criticality of the purchase or the illogical relationship of the requested action and the time for their implementation, since these players can assess such a request as pressure, stop playing, and not make an in-app purchase.
3. “Skeptics” need to be personally interested and to have a desire to continue the game, so for these players interesting gameplay is necessary, a large number of levels with gradual increase in difficulty. Since this segment of users very rarely makes in-app purchases, promotion and product development can be combined with other clusters.
4. “Erudite” segment users pay attention to the utility of the purchase, its criticality, strictly relate to the quality of the game, this means that it is worth integrating in-app purchases into the game, which would allow you to save the user’s time, or without which they wouldn’t be able to continue the game or go to the next level. these players are more likely to make donations, so there is no need to stress the criticality of the purchase, but rather encourage the player with new free features or resources, talk about the developers’ team, the work that was done to improve the game, eliminated bugs, improved design, so that the user feels like part of the team that develops his favorite games.
5. “Gamblers” are less critical to the quality of the game, but all other characteristics related to the gameplay are similar to the “erudite”.

The mobile game market is attractive for many developers and publishers. The Russian mobile games market has entered the world’s top five in terms of downloads of smartphone games in the first half of 2021, with more than 1.5 billion downloads. Drivers influencing the making of in-app purchases in mobile games by users from China, Indonesia, Taiwan, and India were similar but not identical. For players from India, loyalty to the game is in the most important. For users from China, the momentary pleasure of making a purchase (flow) turned out to be an important indicator. For Indonesian users, the most important driver is monetary value — the value perceived by the user, related to the ratio of the purchase price and its utility during the game. A similar factor, like the price for in-apps, is also important to players from Taiwan, but they do not tend to evaluate the usefulness of this purchase.

For Russian users 10 drivers were identified that affect the probability of making in-app purchases: the usefulness of the purchase, developer support, risks, willingness to continue the game, quality, involvement, utility to the player, crucialness of the purchase, variety of offers, satisfaction of creative potential. These drivers set Russian players apart from users from China, India, Indonesia, and Taiwan. However, the cluster analysis detected 5 segments of mobile game users, depending on the factors influencing the making of in-app purchases. This led us to the assumption that a generalized view of cultural differences within one country may not be sufficient for the successful implementation of marketing campaigns. The identification of these clusters made it possible to develop detailed recommendations to developers and publishers of mobile games both in terms of attracting new users and developing mobile games in Russia.

There are several limitations to this study. First, the sample size of online survey, though the statistics showed reliability, increasing the number of participants can influence the regression coefficients. Second, the cross-cultural comparison that is made on the basis of previous research and different questionnaires used in respective countries. The time of the study and the wording of the questions may lead to distortions in the description of the drivers of in-app purchases. Also, cross-cultural comparison, as shown by cluster analysis, does not reflect the differences in segments within the same country, so generalization of the results may lead to an inaccurate understanding of user characteristics.

Therefore, the direction of future research may be the development of a universal methodology with the same questionnaire for conducting reliable cross-cultural research. On its basis, we can see the similarity and differences of the identified clusters between various countries. If the differences are insignificant, it will indicate a low level of cross-cultural effect and the prevailing importance of other factors.