“Free to Play“
marketing communication of online free-to-play videogames
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4000/cp.4115Keywords:
videogames, communication, opinion leadersAbstract
This article intends to appreciate how free-to-play online video games can benefit from marketing communication to attract gamers. Digital content analysis from producer websites and online video game forums, as well as semi-structured interviews with gamers, were undertaken. We concluded that, although video game producers use a variety of communication techniques, mostly digital ones, they mainly resort to communicational phenomena generated amongst the gamer community, such as electronic-word-of-mouth and user-generated-content, in which online opinion leaders take a leading role. Further investigation of these phenomena is suggested for potential application to other business areas.
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