A Study on the Impact of Virtual Community Characteristic on the Willingness of Chinese Gamers to Participate in Value Co-Creation

Value co-creation is a popular marketing research topic in recent years, and there were already some studies regarding raising consumers’ involvement in co-creation. However, virtual communities such as online games have seldom been addressed in this topic. This thesis aimed to shed light on mobile gamers’ co-creation from the perspective of the characteristics of the virtual community. Hence, this study applied the theory of value co-creation and the characteristics of virtual communities to propose a research model. After analyzing 167 valid online questionnaire respondents from game players, the results indicated that Incentive Mechanism, Members’ Communication, Norm of Reciprocity had significantly positive effects on players’ involvement in co-creation. In addition, the finding’s practical implication suggested that the game companies need to provide unique services so that consumers could voluntarily and actively participate in value co-creation activities.