Exploring Individuals' Switching Behaviour: An Empirical Investigation in Social Network Games in China

Social network game (SNG) is attracting more and more players and becoming a promising market for game providers. Competing game providers are also constantly providing substitutes to attract SNG players to switch among SNGs. In prior IS literature few studies have tried to investigate the switching behaviour. In order to explore IS user’s switching behaviour in SNGs, we examine the determinants of individuals’ switching intention to alternative SNGs and their discontinuing use of the current SNG. We propose and test a research model with 541 responses from Chinese SNG gamers collected via an online survey. The research model suggests that satisfaction, subjective norm, alternative attractiveness and variety-seeking behaviour have significant effects on individuals’ switching intention. Finally, we made a discussion on these findings as well as limitations and future study.

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