Student Thesis

Level: Master’s
Evaluation of Games Monetization Approaches

A case study on PlayersUknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)

Author: Syed Muhammad Farhan Gillani

Supervisor: Somayeh Aghanavesi
Examiner: Moudud Alam
Subject/main field of study: Microdata Analysis
Course code: MI4002
Credits: 15 ECTS
Date of examination: 2021-06-09

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ABSTRACT
Video games have become a great source of entertainment and emerged as a massive industry
in the past few decades. Technological advancements and evolution of smartphones have
made it easier for developers to develop and launch their games on different platforms mostly in
digital form. Where the technology has facilitated game developers, it has also made this
industry very competitive. Companies/developers need to consistently review their monetization
strategies and make necessary changes to them in order to stay profitable. This study evaluates
the monetization approaches of a case game by conducting a public survey. By analyzing the
responses received from users from different regions of the world, this study found out how
users from different regions have different attitudes towards gaming and how these can affect
monetization approaches. Users from different regions spend time on gaming differently and
their total number of gaming hours also vary. The findings from the thesis show that the specific
hours might be a potential for gaming companies monetization investigation. In-game
advertisements is one of the most popular monetization approaches and majority of the users
from all age groups, regions, genders, and professions have no issues watching ads to receive
some in-game benefits. Similarly, in-app purchase model of the case game proved to be very
popular among its users. Subscriptions model, on the other hand, may prove to be another
popular model for generating revenue, however, the company needs to address some issues to
make users continue with their subscriptions. This study points out some reasons why users
stop spending money on the case game. The study identifies some mitigation points as potential
aspects that might have impact on monetization.

Keywords: games monetization, in-game purchases, free-to-play games, paid games,

subscription model in gaming
 Acknowledgement
The author cannot thank Somayeh Aghanavesi enough for supervising this research work. Without
her continuous guidance and shared wisdom this study would not have been possible. Special
gratitude to Charlie Lindgren for his gracious guidance regarding R programming as his support
not only helped in this study but also in understanding of R in general.
Thank you both very much!
Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Video Games ................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.1 Game Genres ........................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Gaming Industry Statistics ............................................................................................ 4
1.3 Monetization ................................................................................................................... 8
1.3.1 Games monetization................................................................................................ 8
1.3.2 Monetization Approaches ...................................................................................... 9
1.4 PlayersUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) ................................................................ 13
1.5 Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 14
1.6 Research Objective ....................................................................................................... 15
Research Methodology ............................................................................................................... 16
2.1 Sampling Design ........................................................................................................... 17
2.2 Questionnaire Design ................................................................................................... 17
2.3 Research and Analysis tools ........................................................................................ 18
Results and Analysis ................................................................................................................... 19
Discussion and Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 28
References .................................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix ...................................................................................................................................... 34
Introduction
Over the past few decades, video games industry has proved to be a great mean of entertainment.
Gaming industry has shown tremendous growth over the past few years with a revenue of USD
70.6 billion in 2012 (Statista, 2020) to USD 174.9 billion in 2020 (Newzoo, 2020). Although 2020
will always be marked as one of the darkest years in the history of mankind due to COVID-19
pandemic, but it was a huge success for the gaming industry. While COVID restricted the life of
almost every person on the planet, it gave an opportunity to indulge in games for the sake of
entertainment. During the pandemic video game industry revenues reportedly exceeded the total
revenue of sports and films combined (Gilbert, 2020).

While video gaming has become a massive industry many companies are jumping into it which
makes it very competitive. As opposed to the days when video games had to be sold in physical
form only, smartphones and tablets have made it easier for even small companies to launch their
games with comparatively less investment. While technology has made it a bit easier for
companies to make and sell their games, it has also made it very hard for companies to stay
competitive. Companies adopt different monetization approaches like subscriptions, in-game
purchases, advertisements, paid games, etc. to make money. These models can be used separately
or in combinations. For instance it is a common practice for free-to-play games to use in-game
purchases, in-game advertisements, and sponsorships models in combination to earn good revenue.
Every model has its advantages and shortcomings, and some models are more successful than
others. This research work will try to evaluate these models by performing quantitative analysis,
and on the basis of this analysis, make some recommendations to not only improve the
performance of these models but also users experience.

This study includes a case company/game where the author tries to evaluate how popular the case
company’s monetization strategies are, and how can these be optimized to generate better
outcomes. On the basis of survey results and analysis, recommendations are also made for the case
company/game.

1.1 Video Games

After the invention of smart phones in early 2000s, video games are now available at your palm,
very few people know how and when exactly they evolved. Story started back in 1950s at MIT
when researchers started research on designing simple simulations. In 1966, Raplh Baer, who was
working at Sanders associates at that time, thought of a device that could be used with an output
device like a TV to provide entertainment to the user giving him/her some control. With the help
of his coworkers William Rasch and William Harrison he developed the first prototype for a

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gaming console called “Brown Box”. At that time there was only one game, i.e. a simple table
tennis, which could be played using that console. The licenses were then sold to Magnavox who
launched the first commercial gaming console called Magnavox Odyssey in 1972.

Because of the limited functionality of its primitive technology, Magnavox Odyssey never
attracted the attention of the public. However, by the mid-1970's, the ball-and-paddle flaw of the
arcade had sparked the public interest in video games and the relentless developments in integrated
circuits had led to Large Scale Integration (LSI) chips which were quite inexpensive to be used in
a consumer product. Magnavox, in 1975, launched two new versions of consoles Magnavox
Odyssey 100 and Magnavox Odyssey 200 using the new chipset which were used to pay only ball-
and-paddle games. In that same year, Atari also entered the market with a single chip home ping
system. In 1976 General instrument introduced “Pong on a Chip” LSI which was used by Coleco
toy company to manufacture Telstar console. Telstar was the first gaming console sold in millions
during that time. These advancements in technology gave the industry a great push by increasing
the ball-and-paddle systems from 0.35 million in 1975 to 5-6 million in 1977 in US alone. Similar
hike was observed in UK and other parts Europe. After that gaming industry continued to grow
across US and Europe for several years with different companies kept on introducing new games
in the market. 1978 to 1982 was the golden era of arcade video games and home consoles when
second generation of consoles was introduced. Third generation consoles were introduced between
1983-1995 while fourth generation took the market during 1987-2004. Fifth generation was
introduced in 1993 and lasted till 2005 when sixth generation took over. Sixth generation was
introduced in 1998 and stayed in the market till 2013. The most latest however is the seventh
generation which came into the market in 2005.

As the home computers were also started to make their way during late 70s and were evolving
very fast during the 80s, the owners also started working on introducing video games in their
computers. They started with programming the clones of the famous games of that time like Star
Trek, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Space Invaders, etc. and distributed the code to the users
through a variety of channels so that they could type in the code themselves to play the games on
their computers. IBM was listed as one of the top three innovations in the history of video games
by Sid Meier (Totilo, 2008).

With time the technology was continuously becoming more and more sophisticated, the increasing
computing speed and decreasing processors’ cost helped in introducing more advanced games in
the PCs including 3D games.

During early 2000s when smart phones were introduced, it opened up an opportunity to keep video
games in your pocket without the need of any exclusive gaming hardware like handheld gaming
console. This breakthrough of smartphones not only helped the consumers with low hardware costs

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but also helped the developers of the games to reach even more consumers. In 2020, the projected
number of global smartphone users was 3.5 billion (Statista, 2019) which means around 45.4% of
total population of the world has smartphone. This is a huge consumer market by any means for
the games developers. There were 427,056 gaming apps available on Google Play store (Clement,
2021) and 957,390 gaming apps were available on Apple App store in third quarter of 2020.
(Statista, 2020). Almost every popular console and PC game is available on mobile as well,
increasing the reachability and customer base.

1.1.1 Game Genres

Genre is any form of communication in any mode and is formed over time in a socially agreed
manner (Devitt, 2015). It is created by conventions that evolve over time as cultures create new
genres and avoid using old ones. Just like books, music, movies, literature, etc. games have genres.
Below is the list of most popular gaming genres:

1. Action
2. Adventure
3. Action-Adventure
4. Role-Playing
5. Simulation
6. Strategy
7. Sports
8. Puzzle

These are the most popular game genres, however, there are other genres as well, for example, on
Apple App store, you can select from sixteen available genres.

Action
Action games underline physical test that need coordination of the hand-eye and motor skills. The
player who handles most of the action is the center of focus. It is still a big genre today, which
involves all games with physical test.

Adventure
The plot or content of adventure games is not specified. Instead, adventure defines a way to play
without reflexes or intervention. They typically need the player in a non-aggressive way to solve
different puzzles via interactions with people or the surroundings.

Action-Adventure
Actions/Adventure games incorporate elements of two components, usually with long-term

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hurdles that need to be resolved using an object formerly collected and almost continuously
overcoming several smaller hurdles that involve action games elements.

Role-Playing
Role-Playing games put the player in a character role which grows its power and experience
throughout the game.

Simulation
Simulation games try to replicate different real-life events in the games. These events can be
anything like operations training, forecasting, budgeting and analysis, etc. Typically no clearly
specified objectives exist in the game, but instead the player may spontaneously manipulate a
character or a situation.

Strategy
A strategy game genre emphasizes on skilled thinking and planning to accomplish victory. It
focuses on tactical and key challenges. Many of strategy games often present economic and
exploratory challenges.

Sports
Games in the sports genre are sports simulating video games. Player’s team play against another
team which is controlled by either another real person or the computer or AI.

Puzzle
In puzzle game genre the players solves logical puzzles or traverse complicated places like mazes.

1.2 Gaming Industry Statistics

Gaming industry has shown tremendous growth over the past few years. Figure 1 shows revenues
of gaming industry from 2012 to 2020. In 2012 total global revenue of video game industry was
USD 70.6 billion. With an increase of around 8.3% it touched USD 76.5 billion in 2013. In 2014
it reached to total revenue of USD 84.8 billion. An increase of about 10% was observed in 2015
when it earned USD 93.1 billion. 2016 and 2017 showed remarkable growth of around 14.3%
(Statista, 2020). But 2020 was quite surprising when situation changed due to pandemic and total
revenue for 2020 came out to be USD $ 174.9 billion (Newzoo, 2020).

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 200
180
174.9
160

Revenue in Billion USD

140 145.7
138.8
120
121.7
100 106.5
80 93.1
84.8
60 76.5
70.6
40
20
0
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Year

Figure 1: Global Game Market Value 2012-2020 (Newzoo, 2020)

Although 2020 will always be marked as one of the darkest years in the history of mankind due to
COVID-19 pandemic, but it was a huge success for the gaming industry. While COVID restricted
the life of almost every person on the planet, it gave an opportunity to indulge in games for the
sake of entertainment. Video game industry revenues reportedly exceeded the total revenue of
sports and films combined (Gilbert, 2020). According to Newzoo 2020 global games market
report, gaming industry made USD 174.9 billion in 2020, almost 20% increase from 2019
(Newzoo, 2020). Figure 2 shows the 2020 gaming revenue breakdown on the basis of PC, Console,
and Mobile platforms. Largest sales were recorded in mobiles platforms which is almost the half
of total revenues. While rest of the half is earned via Console and PC Sales.

37.4
(22%)

2020 Total
86.3
(49%) $174.9 bn
+20% YoY

51.2
(29%)

PC Console Mobile

Figure 2: Global Game Market Value 2020 in bn. USD (Newzoo, 2020)

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If we further divide the Mobile and PC games into subcategories as shown in figure 3, we see that
out of total mobile games revenue (i.e. 49% of total revenue) 43% (74.9 billion) was earned
through smartphone games, while the remaining 6% (11.4 billion) was earned through tablet
games. Similarly, from the total revenue of PC games (i.e. 22% of total revenue) 20% (34.2 billion)
was generated from boxed and downloadable PC games sales, while the remaining 2% (3.2billion)
was generated through browser based PC games (Batchelor, 2020).

Figure 3: Segmented Global Game Market Value 2020 in bn. USD (Batchelor, 2020)

Out of total revenue 91% i.e. USD 158 billion was made through digital sales, compared to 79%
in 2019. USD 128.6 billion was the revenue from in-game spending, which means USD 29.4
billion was earned by selling the digital versions of games, which is still almost double the revenue
generated by selling physical versions (Newzoo, 2020). Figure 4 below shows the distribution of
revenue among boxed and digital sales.

100%
90%
80%
Revenue %age

70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Total Market PC Market Console Market Mobile
Revenues

Digital Boxed

Figure 4: Digital Vs Boxed Revenue 2020 (Newzoo, 2020)

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Large portion of digital sales comes from PC and mobile. Smartphones has become the most
convenient mean of playing games. The reason is that it is very portable and you do not need to
spend extra money on games hardware like console, graphic card, controller etc.

It is interesting to see some other stats of gaming industry. Figure 5 shows top 5 games by
worldwide downloads, top 5 countries by downloads, top 5 games by worldwide revenue, and top
5 countries by revenue (Batchelor, 2020). “Garena Free Fire” is ranked first for number of
downloads worldwide in year 2020, followed by another hit title “Among Us”. But when it comes
to revenue PUBG led the board with 2.6 billion US dollars revenue in 2020. Second highest
revenue earned in 2020 was by the title “Honor of King” with an intriguing figure of USD 2.4
billion. India was ranked as the top country by download with over 9 billion downloads in 2020,
followed by the US with around 5 billion downloads. However, US toped the rank board for top
countries by revenue with an astonishing figure of USD 21 billion, with Japan on second position
with USD 16.4 billion spent on gaming in 2020 (Batchelor, 2020).

Figure 5: Mobile Games Market Insights 2020 (Batchelor, 2020)

* does not include third-party app stores in
China, Google Play and App Stores only

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1.3 Monetization
Monetization is term which has different meanings in different context. For instance, according to
the Cambridge, monetization is an act of expressing or changing something into money. It is also
defined as making money from something. This term may also be referred to as an act of converting
a non-cash item into cash, for example a Govt. issued security bonds.

During recent years with the rise in online shopping and entertainment, the term monetization has
become more familiar to many people. Hundreds of thousands of websites are making money
every minute by using different monetization methods. Youtube, Facbook, Google, Insta etc. are
the giants on the web making billions of dollars every year. As people are becoming more aware
of these alternate approaches of making money, many have started earning over the internet by
publishing their blogs, entertainment sites, collaboration tools, games, social networking
platforms, etc. to name a few. For many this is a full time business, for others a way of generating
handsome extra income.

1.3.1 Games monetization

For any business to be successful it needs to generate income. While video gaming has become a
massive industry more and more companies are jumping into it which makes it very competitive.
Smartphones and tablets has made it easier for even small companies to launch their games with
little investment as compared to the times when video games needed to be sold in physical form
only. While technology has made it a bit easier for companies to make, and sell their games, it has
also make it very hard for companies to stay competitive.

Different companies use different techniques to earn revenue. Some games are paid while others
are free-to-play. In recent years, more and more companies adopting free-to-play strategy as it
helps make a strong customer base, while sacrificing the income they could have generated by
selling the game. But this sacrifice paid well over the years. As shown in Figure 6 Free-to-play
games generated 78% of total digital games revenue in 2020 (Superdata, 2020). This shows that
ultimately companies offering free games are earning more revenues than those who offer paid
games. However, this should be interpreted with caution because these percentages do not provide
insights about the number of games in each of these two categories, or the average revenue per
game in each category.

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 22%

78%

Free-to-play games Paid games

Figure 6: Digital games revenue share 2020, (Superdata, 2020)

In this case, companies adopt different monetization approaches to earn money like, subscriptions,
in-game purchases, advertisements, etc. We will discuss different monetization approaches in
more details in the coming section.

1.3.2 Monetization Approaches

Every business needs to generate revenue to meet expenses and to be successful. Like other
physical products, digital products also require time, effort, and investment to start, thus making it
crucial to make money to sustain in the market. When we talk about digital products, like video
games, the businesses follow different monetization models to generate revenues. Most popular
and effective models are:

 Paid games
 Free-to-play games/In-game purchases
 Subscriptions
 In-game Advertisements
 Sponsorships

We will discuss these models in details to see how they work, what are the benefits of using these
models, and what are the potential challenges faced while using these models.

Paid Games
Under this approach companies develop games and make them “Paid” for users, which means
users have to pay a certain amount of money to download and play the game. This approach has
its own benefits and shortcomings. While it is understood that like any other product, digital games
also require time, effort, and investment to be successful. With paid game model the
developer/company can capitalize from very start, as it does not have to wait for the users to make
in-app purchases with tiny transactions. Users who buy a game are tend to be more loyal and
engaged. It, sometimes, also give the users an expression that the game would be great because it
is paid, making the potential users curious about trying it out.

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Normally, profit margins are huge for paid games as compared to free-to-play games. Companies
make money with each and every unit sold/downloaded. Digital versions, especially, helped a lot
in cutting the costs. Now companies don’t need to bear manufacturing or maintenance/storage
costs of the inventory. They simply sale digital versions on a cheaper price, which still, has more
profit margins as compared to physical product.

It is not that there are only benefits of paid-games. The biggest challenge, in monetary terms, is
that companies need to invest all of the budget upfront as they cannot launch the product mid-way.
This is quite risky approach as developing a good title requires handsome amount of money,
especially for the smaller companies. If things don’t turn out as expected, there are chances of huge
losses.

Secondly, it is quite tricky to convince the users to buy a game to experience it. Most of the
customers are hesitant to invest in anything they are not sure of. Companies are heavily dependent
on their marketing tactics as well as market reviews. They need to make sure that the value they
are giving to the users justify their investment.

Free-to-play Games
Free-to-play or freemium has become a very successful model in the recent years. Although it is
not a new business model as it has been in the market for decades, but during recent years it
emerged as the most successful model, especially for the digital content, e.g. apps and games. It
allows an opportunity to the users to experience the game without paying anything. The benefit of
this free offering is that the game can engage a large number of users, who might become potential
customers. Once a user starts playing the game after download, he/she has the option to make in-
game purchases of digital content like skins, in-game currency, characters, outfits, vehicles, etc.
Mostly free-to-play games do not give access to the whole content to the user. They allow the
player to experience the game with some limited options, but he/she can always unlock new
options buy making some in-game purchases. Free-to-play games earned USD 98.4 billion in 2020
(Superdata, 2020).

Freemium games have many advantages for both the company and the users. The most important
advantage to the user is that he/she can experience the game without paying anything upfront, and
even can continue as long as he/she wants with limited options. On the other hand companies
offering free-to-play games are in better position to attract a massive bunch of users. More the
users more chances of getting potential customers. It is kind of a great marketing strategy to attract
public and let them experience your product, and if satisfied they can make purchases. Even if a
user does not make any in-game purchases, companies can still capitalize on them by using other
monetization models like advertisements, data monetization, etc. Being a freemium, it is quite
acceptable to the users if companies use different monetization approaches, after all they are not

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paying anything for that game.

Another advantage of being a freemium is that the game can get huge number of downloads that
can help in optimization of the game. More the game is optimized on platform like App Store and
Google Play, more chances of attracting new users, that can enhance the possibility of getting more
new potential customers. When people are engaged in the game, chances of making multiple sales
per user increases. Unlike paid games it is not a one-time cost that a user pays to get access to all
the features of the game. They keep paying and unlocking new features throughout their playing
timespan which yields repetitive sales for the company.

While free-to-play games attract large number of users, the biggest challenge is to retain them in
order to convert them to a source of revenue. As companies are not charging anything upfront for
their games, they need to take advantage of the huge user base in order to generate revenues.
Failure in retaining the users can end up in huge losses. As the users do not invest anything in the
game, they tend be less loyal to the game. If, at any point they find it less entertaining, they will
simply switch to another game.

Huge user base comes with another challenge, i.e. companies need to keep their servers optimized
enough to facilitate them and give them seamless experience. It increases the maintenance costs.
Many games need to have multiple servers in different regions to make sure their users do not face
any downtime or rendered performance of the servers.

Creativity is the key in order to capitalize the users to their full potential. If paid content in the
game is not creative or exciting enough, users will simply not buy it. Therefore game developers
need to understand their user base better in order to provide what will be sold.

Subscriptions
Subscriptions model is working very well for many companies in different industries like Amazon
Prime, Netflix, Salesforce.com, etc., many tech behemoths believe that the subscription model will
become the standard in the video game industry too. Subscriptions in mobile games have grown
in popularity in recent years. According to Google Play, it has seen a growth of 70% over the years
in game subscriptions (Beshimov, 2019). Subscriptions can become a great model in gaming
industry to generate consistent revenues and had the potential to become the most successful
model. Companies can increase the number of subscribers to generate steady income over
extended periods of time. Keeping the subscription costs low can retain the subscribers for a longer
period of time. As subscriptions generate consistent revenue streams, companies are in better
position to make revenue estimates as the inflow is relatively steady. Having a better insights about
the estimates help make better budgeting and strategies.

Subscription not only generates steady income, it also makes the users more loyal as they pay a

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certain cost for a fixed period of time. This increases the retention rate and help increase the service
usability. A fixed monthly cost for a well-defined set of accessibility makes it easier for users to
understand it. They feel comfortable about what they are paying and what they will get in return.

Subscription models seem promising however with more and more games available for free to
start with, it is very difficult to convince the users to pay a certain amount every month or so. Users
normally don’t tend to pay money on regular basis for something when other alternates are
available for free. Subscriptions somehow bind the users financially to keep using the service for
a certain period of time. Users hesitate to indulge in long-term commitments, so there is a potential
risk of losing potential customers.

Secondly, Subscription models have limited target customers as they are not suitable for the users
who are not regular gamers. It means people who play games only when they have some free time
will not opt for any subscriptions. This reduces the company’s user base and limit the possibilities
of making small sales to more and more users.

In-game Advertisement
One of the most popular monetization strategies nowadays for free-to-play games is in-game
advertisement. In this model users are intentionally directed to watch ads of other products. There
are several ways companies make their users watch ads, for instance some companies offer to
watch ads in return of some in-game benefits while others force the users to watch ads to proceed
further with the game. This approach of monetization is very successful as it enables companies
to generate revenues from the users who are actually not paying anything. For every ad watched
by the user, company gets paid. Large user base makes it even more feasible for companies to
attract more advertisers. Like any other monetization model this approach also has some benefits
as well as drawbacks, but unlike any other model this approach enables companies to generate
some guaranteed revenues by forcing users to watch ads, especially from the ones who are not
actually paying in any other form.

In-game advertisement enables companies to capitalize on every single user, even when the users
are not spending anything from their own pockets. Users who prefer to enjoy the game for free do
not mind watching adequate number of ads, especially when they get some kind of reward in
return, like level up and digital content etc.

The "packing a message in an entertaining environment" is a great advantage brought by games

and makes users not only to express an opinion about the advertised products, but also to
communicate with producers by means of special services and enhance the connectivity provided
by the online environment (Ferrazzi et. all, 2003). Studies about the attitude of consumers towards
the placing of products in the game found that users in general have a good reaction to this activity

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and feel that trade does not interfere with the game experience used in the study (Nelson, 2002).
In-game advertisement is acceptable at a high level, not only is it accepted by the users, but more
than 70 percent of players believe this to be desirable and adequate, as it gives realism to a virtual
environment and decreases the price of play in certain cases (Abrudan, 2009).

One concern with in-game ads is how heterogeneous the public is. Targeting is one of the greatest
challenge to marketers. To choose the best video game to incorporate their ads for a particular
publicity is difficult to accomplish. This can in return affect the game company’s monetization
model. Players consent to inject ads into a video game, but only if it is appropriate and effective.
People play games to enter a virtual universe, so if a brand appears in a game, then the feeling of
virtual reality must be enhanced (Mediaedge: CIA, 2005). In other words it is a very sensitive
matter for the gaming companies to select the ads to be displayed in their games. If they make a
wrong choice they risk losing their users.

Another important factor to consider is the frequency of ads. Too much of advertisement can affect
negatively as users can decide to opt-out. Losing users can have a grave effect on overall success
of the game. Companies need to be very active in ads management not only to generate good
revenues from it but also to avoid losing their users.

Sponsorships
Sponsorship is an innovative business model. The key concept is to collaborate with an
organization that wants to market its goods. A game user must perform certain tasks in the app in
order to receive rewards from an advertiser, such as a discount or a coupon. As a result, the game
company receives money from an advertisement firm in exchange for promoting them within the
game, while a user is funded by that company. This monetization model is the most user-friendly
since it does not aggravate users’ eperience that might happen in advertising approach, and does
not ask for money like in paid games or in-game purchases model, but instead treats them with
actual gifts.

Sometimes the game company only displays the logo or some tag line of the sponsor within the
game play, or create some digital content which portray the sponsor, for instance, PUBG built and
introduced Godzilla character in the game to promote the movie. Not only the character but it also
added a complete time limited Godzilla event in the game just before the launch of the movie.

1.4 PlayersUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)

Case study in this research is of PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game
company Bluehole, produced and released the online multiplayer battle royale game
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). The first release was a beta testing version on steam in
March 2017, and a full version for windows PC was launched in December 2017. In 2018 company
released a mobile version of the game called PUBG Mobile. In 20202 PUBG Mobile alone had

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232.5 million downloads worldwide and earned a revenue of USD 2.6 billion in 2020 (Batchelor,
2020). According to the Tencent, PUBG Mobile downloads were accumulated to 730 million by
June 2020. By July 2020 PUBG sold 70 million copies for PC and consoles (Statista, 2021). In
March 2020 daily active users for the mobile version alone reached up to 65 million (Tencent,
2020). Since its launch the game has won 12 awards and has been nominated for 39 awards from
2017 to 2019.

PUBG mobile version is free to play while different console versions such as Xbox and PS are
paid. PUBG Mobile offers extensive range of digital content which can be purchased within the
game. PUBG has a virtual in game currency named UC (Unknown Currency). This in game
currency is used to buy different digital items in the game, however, users have to spend real
money to buy this virtual currency. Along with in-game purchases, PUBG also uses Sponsorships,
Subscription, and advertisement models for monetization. In this study monetization approaches
of PUBG Mobile are analyzed and on the basis of analysis recommendations are made in the
coming sections.

1.5 Literature Review

Using various online resources a relevant literature on gaming industry and its monetization
approaches was undertaken. Many researchers have targeted different game types like freemium
and paid games and discussed their popularity and monetization approaches. Ahmad Beltagui and
Thomas Schmidt with other two fellows studied freemium game monetization. They practiced
several methods to understand online game community. They conducted interviews and extracted
development of hypothesis from the survey data. They found that content of service provider does
not matter. What matters is community’s willingness to pay. The practical implication based on
their study suggests that decision makers should understand that all players are not potential
players. Apart from this, social players can prove to be fruitful in growth of the community while
maintaining them. In contrary to this, achievement-oriented players pay more for the value they
extract from community.

Bin Fang, Zhiqiang (Eric) Zheng, Qiang Ye, & Paulo B. Goes studied social influence and
monetization of freemium social games. They analyzed dataset provided by Tencent.com and
found that the cohesion effect emerging from player’s direct connections in the social gaming
network exhibits positive impact on player’s willingness to pay. Surprisingly, the cohesion effect
of pure friends is found to be significantly stronger than that of Simmelian-tie friends, contrary to
the common findings in the literature. Their results show that having too many friends may curb
users’ engagement, especially with regard to willingness to pay. Therefore, gaming platforms
should be careful in stipulating gaming policies on social networking. Their findings suggest that
friends’ adoption of advanced features would increase the focal user’s likelihood to pay, consistent
with the literature.

[14]
David Zendle, Rachel Meyer and Nick Ballou investigated the changing face of desktop video
game monetization. They explored the exposure to loot boxes, pay to win and cosmetic micro
transactions in the most-played steam games of 2010-2019. They examined the play history from
2010 to 2019 of the 463 most played steam desktop games. Exploratory Join point research
findings indicated that rapid growth in cosmetic micro transactions and loot boxes occurred
throughout 2012–2014, resulting in high exposure rate by April 2019: 71.2% of the study played.
Pay to win micro transactions, on the other hand, did not appear to experience similar development.

Keattikorn Samarnggoon and Arus Kunkhetfrom from department of animation and Game College
of arts, media and technology Chiang Mai, Thailand did an investigation of monetization models
in digital games. They represented a review and comparison of monetization models in a free-to-
play gaming. The investigation is conducted by examining the set of questionnaire. The results
show that the in-game Ads are not bothering the majority of players and players do not pay to
remove them. Fashion and uniqueness of player’s avatar is more important than the in-game items
that would help player in a game.

On the basis of above mentioned literature, an approach was formulated to accomplish the key
purpose of the study. This study tries to evaluate different games monetization approaches by
working on a case company/game. It also tries to analyze how different factors e.g. region,
occupation, and age, etc. may affect the monetization approaches.

1.6 Research Objective

This study sheds light on different monetization approaches of gaming industry, and evaluate the
monetization approaches of a case company/game, i.e. Playersunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG).
On the basis of the analysis and findings, provide recommendations to the case company/game to
improve the outcome of its monetization approaches. So the proposed question that this study
addressed is:

How popular PUBG’s monetization approaches are among users of different demography, and
how these can be improved?

To provide an answer to the above mentioned question this research followed the following
strategies:

 Gathering games and monetization related data from users belonging to different regions,
age groups, professions, and gender
 Analyzing their responses and suggesting improvements to the monetization models of the
case company/game in order to generate better outcomes

[15]
Research Methodology
In order to provide an answer to the research question of this study, data needed to be collected
and analyzed. To conduct a quantitative analysis, we selected Playerunknown’s battlegrounds
(PUBG) mobile as our case study. This game is particularly selected for analysis because it showed
great growth and popularity among the users since its launch in 2018, and secured top position
revenue wise among all other games in 2020 (Batchelor, 2020). Second reason to select this game
is that it uses almost all popular monetization models. Figure 7 shows the outline of the research
methodology.

Step 1 – Data Collection

A questionnaire distributed among the
users

Step 2 – Data Aggregation

Collected data stored in an Excel file in
the form of a dataset

Step 3 – Data Analysis and visualization

Most of the analysis on the data
performed using Microsoft Excel,
and visualized using Excel and R

Step 4 – Results
On the basis of the analysis results are
derived and presented in a meaningful
way

Figure 7: Outline of Research Methodology

[16]
2.1 Sampling Design
To perform the quantitative analysis, a sampling design was needed. Population for this study
consists of all the gamers who play or have played PUBG. Aim was to gather quite similar number
of responses from all genders, age groups, professions, and regions in the total population. The
responses received were quite equally distributed among genders, professions, and age groups,
however, regional distribution of respondents was not balanced for all the regions. As a matter of
fact, this can be considered as one of the limitations of the study. Moreover, due to the large
population size, it was not possible to get an exhaustive sampling frame. Therefore different social
media groups were used to reach out to a number of population units, with a limitation that the
sampling frame did not accurately represent the total population, however, only the groups which
are created specifically for PUBG players were chosen to make sure every sample unit represents
the population.

Next step was to select a sample. We used non-probability voluntary response sampling method
due to the nature of defined population, the nature of research, and time and budgeting constraints.
To gather responses from our sample we designed and distributed a questionnaire.

2.2 Questionnaire Design

To gather data about game users and their opinion about different monetization models that game
companies use, a questionnaire consisting of 26 questions was drafted. Questions in the
questionnaire were formed in a way that they gather information not only about the demography
of the respondents but also about the popularity of different monetization models. First few
questions were about some general information of the participant, e.g. age, region, profession, etc.
This information was needed to perform analysis about how demography affects the users’ opinion
about monetization approaches. A couple of questions were designed to understand how much
time users normally spend on games daily, and what are the most active hours of a day when most
of the users play games. These questions helped in suggesting the gaming companies, based on
the activity level, during which hours of a day in certain regions they should run their monetization
campaigns to improve the productivity.

Then the participants were asked how do they respond to in-game advertisements, how do they
feel about subscriptions, and if they spend real money on games or not. Next section of the
questionnaire asked questions specifically about PUBG. The participants were asked if they play
or have played PUBG, how much time they spend on the game, how much money they have spent
so far on this game, what makes them spend money, why they think people stop spending money
after a while, and in their view, how PUBG can make people spend more?

After drafting the questionnaire, it was developed using Google Forms. There were two main

[17]
reasons of using Google forms for the survey; 1- it is one of the cheapest and fastest way to gather
responses from users, 2- the aim was to gather responses from users in different regions and
continents.

Questionnaire stayed live for a total of 30 days, from 10th of February 2021 to 11th of March 2021.
Total of 467 responses were collected. The respondents were from different regions like Asia,
Europe, United States, Middle East, etc. This was done to better understand the gaming and
spending behavior of people from different regions, their priorities and liking and disliking about
gaming in general and PUBG in specific. Actual questionnaire that we distributed can be reviewed
in the appendix section.

2.3 Research and Analysis tools

Google forms platform was used to distribute the questionnaire among the users. After collecting
all the responses an Excel spreadsheet was generated and populated with the responses. Collected
data then preprocessed and checked for anomaly, outliers, and missing values. Questionnaire was
designed in a way that the respondents couldn’t skip a questions, which is why no missing values
were found in the data. Most of the questions in the questionnaire were multiple choice questions,
so no irregularities were found in the data. Most of the analysis on the data was done using
Microsoft Excel. R programming is used to generate different analytical graphics. Ggplot library
was used to plot the results. This study includes three types of graphical representations, i.e. pie
charts, bar charts, and scatter points. Pie charts are used where the information to be shown had
two variables and the results can be easily interpreted through a pie chart. Stacked bar charts are
used where the analysis used three variable and all three needed to be shown in a visualization.
Scatter point plot is used to give a clear view to the reader about the distribution of a variable in
connection with the other.

[18]
Results and Analysis
Based on the responses received from 467 respondents following outcome were generated:

Demographic information of the respondents

First section of the questionnaire asked about the demography of the respondents. Information
about age, region, profession, and gender was collected. Table 1 below summaries that
information:

Table 1: Demographic Information of Survey Respondents

Asia Europe USA Middle East Africa

Total Respondents 186 152 107 19 3

Student 115 64 62 9 1
Occupation
Professional 71 88 45 10 2

Male 100 67 47 11 3
Gender
Female 86 85 60 8 -

Less than 15 Years 52 44 31 - -

15-25 Years 56 59 42 6 -

Age Group 26-35 Years 51 45 31 9 1

36-45 Years 25 4 3 4 2

More than 45 years 2 - - - -

Out of 467 respondents 27.2% said they are less than 15 years old. 34.9% respondents were aged
between 15 years to 25 years. This means almost 1/3rd of the total survey population were
youngsters between the age of 15 and 25. 29.3% respondents were of age between 26 and 35, and
only 8% people were in the age range of 36 – 45.

According to the survey respondents 51.2% were females and 48.8% were males. It showed that
more female gamers took part in the survey and that games are equally liked by females also as a
source of entertainment.

39.6% of total respondents belonged to Asia, 32.5% took part in the survey from Europe, 22.9%
from United States, and only 4% from Middle East. One thing to keep in consideration here is that
there is quite a large number of gamers in the Middle East. Number of respondents took part from
Middle East in this survey is low but that doesn’t mean that actual number of gamers in that region
is low. We can consider it a limitation of this survey that not an equal number of people from
Middle East participated in this Survey.

[19]
46.3% respondents said they are professionals while 53.7% said they are students. It showed that
games are almost equally popular among people of different age groups and fields.

Daily time spent on games

Figure 8 below shows how much time the respondents normally spend on games in different
regions. It can be clearly seen that large number of respondents from Asia usually spend between
4 to 6 hours per day on gaming. Europeans on the other hand said they spend less than an hour per
day while respondents from United States said they usually spend 1 to 3 hours per day on gaming.
This information shows the active time of users from different regions and can be helpful to tailor
monetization approaches for these regions.

Figure 8: Region wise time spent on games by the users

Most active hours in different regions

The survey asked the respondents about the hours of the day when they play games. This question
would help in suggesting the gaming companies about the hours of a day when most of the users
are active in different regions, so that they might consider running their in-game advertisements
during those hours, as it might help capitalizing on maximum users. Figure 9 below depicts what
are the hours of a day when most of the users are active in different regions. 128 respondents from
Asia said they normally play games during 12:00PM to 6:00PM. In Europe 116 respondents said

[20]
they play games during early morning hours, i.e. 6:00AM to 12:00PM. This is interesting to see
that Europeans responded with early morning hours, however this response might be influenced
by the pandemic. During 2020 we observed that most of the countries in the world, especially
many European countries were under lockdown. It significantly reduced outdoor activities, and
workplaces and educational institutes were also closed. This could be a reason for people from this
particular region to spend early morning hours on games. In United States, 80 out of 107
respondents said they play games between 6:00PM to 12:00AM.

Figure 9: Region wise most active hours of a day

Spending attitude of the respondents

A question was asked to get to know whether or not the respondents are/will be willing to spend
money on video games they like to play. Figure 10 below shows that 67% of total respondents said
they are/will be willing to spend money on games. While 26.8% said they do/would do it rarely.
It means that most of the respondents were positive about spending money on games.

[21]
 6.2%

28.7% I do/would do it quite often

26.8%
I do/would do it occasionally
I do/would do it rarely
38.3% I don’t/wouldn’t do it

Figure 10: Attitude of users about spending on games

Subscription willingness
Respondents were asked if they would buy a game subscription and 81.2% said they would prefer
to buy a subscription which provides them benefits in a game play. These benefits can be exclusive
content, badges, bonuses, access to locked maps or functionalities, ads free game play experience,
etc. if people feel stand out of other players, they are willing to pay a cost for it. Figure 11 shows
that most of the respondents, regardless of their occupation, agreed that buying a subscription for
games is a better choice for them.

Figure 11: Student Vs Professional subscription willingness

[22]
Ads Watching Behavior
70.9% of total respondents said they do/would watch in-game ads to get their hands on some
benefits in the games. It shows a positive trend for the in-game ads monetization approach. Even
if the users aren’t paying for the game, they still are a good source of income through ads
monetization. Figure 12 shows students are more willing to watch ads and they do it quite often
than professionals, however professionals are also into watching ads. Most of the professionals
said they occasionally watch ads but overall both students and professionals watch ads which
ultimately increases the revenues of the game.

Figure 12: Student Vs Professional ads watching behavior

PUBG awareness among the respondents

99.1% of the respondents either played PUBG for a while or were currently playing it with 64.5%
of total respondents had 6 – 18 months experience of playing the game. It tells us that they not
only know well about the game play, but they also have enough experience to like or dislike
something in the game.

90.8% respondents said they do play other games along-with it. This tells us that users are not
sticking to one game alone, they like to play different games, and perhaps different genres as well,
during a given time period. Even when the users play other games along-with PUBG, 85.4% said
they spend 25% – 75% of their total gaming time on PUBG. It tells us that even when people are

[23]
playing other games as well, they are still spending most of their time on PUBG, and it gives an
indication about its popularity among the respondents.

Frequency of PUBG in-game purchases

70.9% of total respondents said they make a purchase at least once a month. Out of it 33.8% were
those who were active buyers and made a purchase every week. This gives us an insight that PUBG
is running its in-game purchases monetization model quite effectively.

Spending on PUBG
Figure 13 shows which region’s users spend most on PUBG. United States users lead the board
with maximum respondents responded that they have spent between $100 to $300. Most of the
European users responded with $100 - $200 as their spending so far on PUBG, while majority of
Asian users said they have spent $1 - $100, being the lowest among other regions average
spending.

85.2% of total respondents said they have spent between $1 and $300, while only 1.7% were those
who never made any purchases. Maximum users spent between $1 and $200, comprises of 72.6%
of total respondents.

Figure 13: Region wise Spending on PUBG

[24]
Reasons to spend on PUBG
While people are spending money, we wanted to know what made them spend money. As seen in
the Table 2, 38.8% said they are more fascinated about the excitement of opening a crate, while
32.5% said they actually like the content PUBG offers. 19.3% said they made purchases just
because their in-game friends had better content than them. Interestingly, only 7.7% mentioned
supporting PUBG as their main reason of spending money. It tells us that people like the element
of surprise and they tend to spend more when they are not quite sure about what exactly they are
going to receive out of a set of predefined things. Secondly, they keep on spending until they get
what they are most interested in getting. Other major reason of spending is the quality of content
they are going to receive in return. If it is creative and impressive, people don’t hesitate about
making a purchase. Concept of “value of money” prevails.

Table 2: Reasons to Spend on PUBG

No. of
Reasons %age
Respondents

I like/liked the excitement of opening a crate 181 38.8%

I like/liked the paid content (skins, clothes,

152 32.5%
characters, etc.) PUBG offers

My game friends have/had better content 90 19.3%

I want/wanted to support PUBG 36 7.7%

Not Applicable (I never spend/spent money) 8 1.7%

Retention of PUBG Prime subscription by users

We asked people if they ever had or have prime subscription of it. Figure 14 depicts that 40.9% of
the total respondents said they have/had it for one season, while 33.6% said they have or had it for
six months or less. What it tells us is that the PUBG users prefer to buy digital content offered by
it but they are less interested in keeping its prime subscription, as long-term prime subscribers are
just 9.6% of total respondents.

[25]
 15.8% 40.9%
I never had it
I have/had it for one season*
2.6%
I have/had it for 6 or less months
7.1% I have/had it for 12 months
I have/had it for more than 12 months
33.6%

*One season of PUBG is comprised of 2 months

Figure 14: PUBG prime subscription retention by users

Cost of exclusive content offered by PUBG

66.2% of total respondents said that at least 75% of the digital items offered by PUBG are/were
very expensive. Figure 15 shows the respondents’ opinion towards the cost of digital content
PUBG offers to its users through in-game purchases. It tells us that although people are making
purchases, but at the same time they think that the value of money is not very good. There were
only 1.3% of total respondents who seemed satisfied with PUBG’s pricing strategies for its virtual
products.

36.8%

29.3%
26.6%

6.0%
1.3%

Figure 15: Users opinion about PUBG digital content cost

PUBG advertisement approach for monetization

Not only in-game purchase is paying off PUBG well but also the advertisements monetization
approach is quite successful in terms of generating revenues. 70.2% of the respondents said they
do/did watch ads to get some otherwise paid content for free. Although the items they get in return

[26]
are not quite popular ones but still people want to get them. It results in more ads revenue for the
company.

Why people stop spending money on PUBG

Table 3: Reasons of why people stop spending money on PUBG
No. of
Reasons %age
Respondents

PUBG has so many cheaters/hackers 213 42.3%

Content is very expensive 156 30.9%

Content is not very creative 112 22.2%

It doesn’t worth it at all 12 2.4%

All of the above 11 2.2%

Table 3 explains that two major reasons of people either stop spending money or not spending at
all are the hackers/cheaters in the game and expensive content. PUBG is one of the games where
a player competes with online players from around the world, and it requires skills and energy.
With someone using some programs to corrupt the standard game play to get advantages over other
players is what makes real players demotivated. According to the survey around 50% marked this
as a main reason of people stop spending money on the game. They think that their money is
wasted when their final achievements are manipulated by some cheaters. Second most important
reason mentioned by the respondents is the cost of content. People spend some money on buying
it, but then they stop because they don’t see the items are worth their cost. PUBG needs to address
these two issues to make its users keep purchasing for long-term.

[27]
Discussion and Conclusion
This study was focused on evaluation of monetization approaches of PUBG game. On the basis of
analysis done in the former chapter following recommendations are made:

Users from different regions spend different amounts of time and money on games as depicted in
Figure 8 and Figure 13. Regions like Asia where users spend more time but less money on gaming
have more potential of acquiring future customers. The game company should keep these factor in
mind and tweak their monetization approaches in a way which not only retain these users but also
convert them into customers. For instance, detailed in Figure 15, large number of respondents said
that the paid in-game digital items offered by PUBG are very expensive. This might be a reason
for users, especially from developing regions/countries, to avoid making purchases. On the other
hand Table 2 showed that most of the people said crate opening to get surprise gifts excites them
the most. Keeping both of these factors, perhaps reducing the cost of digital items in such regions
and improving the crate opening experience by introducing more exciting gifts might help with
improving the overall sales in these regions.

In Figure 9 it is also observed that users of different regions prefer to play games during certain
hours of a day. For instance most of the Asian users said they prefer to play between 12:00PM to
6:00PM. The game company should use this information to devise its in-game advertisement
model in a way that most of the ads are played in a region during the hours when most of the users
in that particular region are active. This can improve the overall effectiveness of the in-game
advertisement model of monetization.

We also observed from the data we gathered that large number of respondents are willing to buy
subscriptions of games, as shown in Figure 11, yet according to Figure 14 a large number of users
of PUBG either never bought or stopped using its prime subscription within first 6 months. This
tells us that it is not that users are not willing to buy a subscription, rather subscription model of
PUBG is not very effective. Possible reasons of this dilemma might be the cost of subscription
itself or the value that PUBG is offering in exchange of subscription. According to the data
provided in Table 1 the users are almost equally divided among students and professionals. This
means that not only students, who has limited financial resources, but also professionals are not
being retained as long-term subscribers.

UC (unknown cash) is a virtual digital currency in PUBG. It is used to purchase different items
offered in game. UC needs to be purchased with real money in order to make any purchases within
the game. Currently PUBG do not offer UC in exchange of watching ads, which means even after
watching ads users cannot have access to most of the items which are otherwise paid. We asked
people if they would watch more ads if PUBG starts offering UC in exchange, and 66.8% agreed
to it (see question 24 in appendix A for details). So, it can be said that PUBG can increase its ads

[28]
revenue by adopting this exchange. It will ultimately increase its overall revenues and profit
margins.

We asked the users if gaming companies start acknowledging their top customers with something
real like a surprise real gift sent to them, an Amazon gift card, or a pass to attend a gaming event,
etc., would it encourage people to spend more on games. 81.2% of the total respondents agreed
with that (see question 26 in appendix A for details). Following this public opinion can be fruitful
for the game company as it might have a motivational impact on the users as they would feel
personally acknowledged.

Although this study served its purpose and provides a reasonable evaluation of monetization
approaches, yet there are some limitations of it. In the survey, not adequate number of users from
Middle East, Africa, and Australia & New Zealand participated, so this study cannot evaluate
monetization approaches in these regions. In other words this study is limited to three regions of
the world, i.e. Asia, Europe, and United States.

This study was focused on one case game and most of the data collected for analysis was related
to that specific game. For this reason this study cannot be completely generalized, however, a part
of the questionnaire asked general questions, e.g. willingness to subscriptions, in-game ads
watching behavior, most active hours of the day, etc. The analysis done on such data might provide
some insights for gaming companies in general to tweak their monetization approaches.

As the study and survey was conducted during first quarter of 2021 when COVID-19 pandemic
has effected every aspect of human lives, some results might not be considered as normal. For
instance users from Europe said they play games during the early morning hours. This might be
because of the pandemic effect as most of the educational institutions and workplaces were closed
mostly through 2020.

The analysis in done on the basis of 467 responses due to time constraint. Considering the size of
this industry, perhaps it is a small sample size

Therefore there is room for future research. More respondents should be included in the future
studies from regions of Middle East, Africa, and Australia as well as the sample size should be
extended to at least a few thousands. A more comprehensive analysis of users from different
regions should also be a part of future research.

In conclusion, gaming industry has proved to be a rapidly growing industry. With the entry of
more and more gaming companies/developers it is becoming more competitive as well. Gaming
companies/developers need to constantly monitor their monetization approaches. According to the
data collected about general attitude towards gaming, the users showed positive attitude towards
in-game advertisements and subscriptions, as well as their preferred hours to play games during a

[29]
day. This shows that the specific hours might be a potential for gaming companies monetization
investigation. PUBG’s in-game advertisement and in-game purchase monetization approaches
proved to be quite popular among its users, however, it may take into consideration their high
digital content cost issue as well as a remedy to address the problem of the cheaters in their game,
to prevent potential loss of paying users.

[30]
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https://www.pcgamesn.com/game-industry-revenue-2020 (Accessed: 31st January 2021.).

Witkowski, W. (2021.) Videogames are a bigger industry than movies and North American
sports combined, thanks to the pandemic, Available at:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/videogames-are-a-bigger-industry-than-sports-and-movies-
combined-thanks-to-the-pandemic-
11608654990#:~:text=Global%20videogame%20revenue%20is%20expected,North%20America
n%20sports%20industries%20combined (Accessed: 10th February 2021.).

[32]
Statista (2021.) Video game market value worldwide from 2012 to 2023, Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/292056/video-game-market-value-worldwide/ (Accessed:
10th February 2021.).

NewZoo (2021.) Top 10 Countries/Markets by Game Revenues, Available at:

https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-10-countries-by-game-revenues/ (Accessed: 20th
February 2021.).

SuperData (2021.) 2020 year in Review, digital games and interactive media, Available at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19E0bXya2wX-tkuOIn4IhbE9Z2Z2EPKwi/view (Accessed: 17th
February 2021.).

Beshimov M. (2019.) Grow your games’ revenue with subscriptions, Available at:
https://medium.com/googleplaydev/grow-your-games-revenue-with-subscriptions-f979efaa3f45
(Accessed: 25th February 2021.).

Singer, D., D’Angelo, E. (2020.) The Netflix of gaming? Why subscription video-game services
face an uphill battle, Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-
telecommunications/our-insights/the-netflix-of-gaming-why-subscription-video-game-services-
face-an-uphill-battle (Accessed: 13th March 2021.).

Statista (2021.) Cumulative unit sales of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) worldwide as

of July 2020, Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/755050/pubg-unit-sales/
(Accessed: 27th April 2021.).

Curry, D. (2021.) PUBG Mobile Revenue and Usage Statistics (2021), Available at:
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/pubg-mobile-statistics/ (Accessed: 27th April 2021.).

[33]
Appendix
Appendix A: Questionnaire and Results
1. Please mention your age.
a) Less than 15 years
b) 15 – 25 years
c) 26 – 35 years
d) 36 – 45 years
e) More than 45 years

0.4%

8.1%

27.2%
Less than 15 Years

29.3% 15-25 Years

26-35 Years
36-45 Years
34.9% More than 45 Years

2. Please select your gender.

a) Male
b) Female
c) Other

[34]
 51.2% 48.8%

Male Female

3. Which region you are from?

a) Europe
b) Asia
c) United States
d) Middle East
e) Africa
f) Australia & New Zealand

0.6%
4.1%

22.9% 32.5% Europe

Asia
United States
Middle East
Africa
39.6%

4. Are you a student or a professional?

a) Student
b) Professional
c) Other

[35]
 46.3% Professional
53.7%
Student

5. Which platform you use mostly to play video games?

a) PC
b) TV Consoles
c) Smartphone or tablet
d) Other

38.5% 36.2%
PC
TV Consoles
Smartphones or Tablets
25.3%

6. Which of the following game genres you like most?

a) Action
b) Action-Adventure
c) Strategy
d) Simulation
e) Sports
f) Role-Play

[36]
 g) Puzzle
h) Adventure
i) Other

14

15

15

25

20

135

168

169

7. How much time you spend daily on playing video games?

a) Less than an hour
b) 1 – 3 hours
c) 4 – 6 hours
d) 7 – 9 hours
e) 10 or more hours

19.5% 38.1%

Less than an hour

1 - 3 hours
3.0% 4 - 6 hours
5.1% 7 - 9 hours
10 or more hours

34.3%

8. During which hours of the day you mostly play the games?
a) 6AM – 12PM
b) 12PM – 6PM
c) 6PM – 12AM
d) 12AM – 6AM

[37]
 41.1%

29.3%
24.4%

5.1%

9. Do you or would you ever spend real money on digital content offered in video games?
a) I do/would do it quite often
b) I do/would do it occasionally
c) I do/would do it rarely
d) I don’t/wouldn’t do it

6.2%

28.7%
26.8% I do/would do it quite often
I do/would do it occasionally
I do/would do it rarely
I don’t/wouldn’t do it
38.3%

10. If you do or would do, what type of game(s) would you like to spend money on?
a) Action
b) Action-Adventure
c) Strategy
d) Simulation
e) Sports
f) Role-Play
g) Puzzle
h) Adventure
i) Other

[38]
 10

15

10

19

21

121

173

166

11. Do you think it is a good idea to buy a monthly subscription in exchange for Premium
status/badge or bonuses in a free to play game?
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
e) Strongly disagree

27.2%

Strongly Agree
Agree
0.6%
2.6% Neutral
54.0%
Disagree
15.6%
Strongly Disagree

12. Do you or would you watch ads to get some in game benefits (like level up, double coins,
new dress, etc.)?
a) I do/would do it quite often
b) I do/would do it occasionally
c) I do/would do it rarely
d) I don’t/wouldn’t do it

[39]
 6.2%
22.9% 32.1% I do/would do it quite often
I do/would do it occasionally
I do/would do it rarely
I don’t/wouldn’t do it
38.8%

13. Do you share /invite friends to play the game you play?
a) Very frequently
b) Frequently
c) Less frequently
d) Never

39.6%

14.3% Very frequently

Frequently
4.5% Less frequently
Rarely
7.5%
Never
34.0%

14. Have you ever played or currently playing PUBG?

a) I am currently playing it
b) I played it for sometime
c) I never played it

[40]
 40.3%
0.9%

I am currently playing it
I played it for sometime
I never played it
58.9%

15. For how long you had or have been playing PUBG?
a) Less than 6 months
b) 6 months to 1 year
c) 1 year to 1.5 years
d) 1.5 year to 2 years
e) More than 2 years

20.3%

39.0% Less than 6 months

6 months to 1 year
11.1%
1 year to 1.5 years
1.5 year to 2 years
4.1% More than 2 years

25.5%

16. Do/Did you play any other game along with PUBG?
a) Yes
b) No

[41]
 9.2%

90.8%

Yes No

17. If you do/did, how much of your total gaming time is/was devoted to PUBG?
a) Less the 25%
b) 25% – 50%
c) 50% – 75%
d) More than 75%

48.6%

6.2%
Less than 25%
25% - 50%
8.4%
50% - 75%
More than 75%

36.8%

18. How frequently do/did you buy digital content offered by PUBG?
a) Very frequently (on average once a week)
b) Frequently (on average once a month)
c) Less frequently (on average once in six months)
d) Rarely (once in a year)
e) Never

[42]
 33.8%

Very frequently (on average once a week)

1.7% Frequently (on average once a month)

2.1%
Less frequently (on average once in six months)
37.0%
Rarely (once in a year)

25.3% Never

19. How much money you have spent so far on PUBG?

a) $0
b) $1 – $100
c) $100 – $200
d) $200 – $300
e) $300 – $400
f) More than $400

1.7%

39.2%
$0
$1 - $100
8.4%
$100 - $200
$200 - $300
12.6% $300 - $400
33.4% More than $400

20. What makes/made you spend/spent money?

a) I like/liked the paid content (skins, clothes, characters, etc.) PUBG offers
b) I like/liked the excitement of opening a crate
c) My game friends have/had better content
d) I want/wanted to support PUBG
e) Not applicable (I never spend/spent money)
f) Other

[43]
 32.5%
I like/liked the paid content (skins, clothes, characters, etc.)
PUBG offers
I like/liked the excitement of opening a crate
1.7%
My game friends have/had better content
7.7% 38.8%
I want/wanted to support PUBG

19.3% Not Applicable (I never spend/spent money)

21. Do you have or ever had prime subscription of PUBG?

a) I never had it
b) I have/had it for one season
c) I have/had it for 6 or less months
d) I have/had it for 12 months
e) I have/had it for more than 12 months

15.8% 40.9% I never had it

I have/had it for one season
2.6% I have/had it for 6 or less months
7.1% I have/had it for 12 months

33.6% I have/had it for more than 12 months

22. Do you think exclusive paid items offered in PUBG are/were expensive?
a) All are/were very expensive
b) 75% are/were expensive
c) 50% are/were expensive
d) 25% are/were expensive
e) Not expensive at all

[44]
 36.8%

29.3%
26.6%

6.0%
1.3%

23. Do/did you watch ads to get some non-popular paid items offered by PUBG for free?
a) Very frequently
b) Frequently
c) Less frequently
d) Rarely
e) Never

31.5%

Very frequently
Frequently
4.7% 38.8% Less frequently
1.9%
Rarely
Never
23.1%

24. Do you think players will watch more ads if PUBG offers UC for watching ads?
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
e) Strongly disagree

[45]
 34.5%

Strongly Agree
Agree
2.6% 32.3%
Neutral
5.8%
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
24.8%

25. In your view what can be a reason(s) for people stop spending money on PUBG?
a) Content is not very creative
b) Content is very expensive
c) PUBG has so many cheaters/hackers
d) It doesn’t worth it at all
e) All of the above
f) Other

112

156

213

12

11

26. Do you think you will spend more if PUBG starts to acknowledge their top customers with
something real, like a surprise real gift sent to you, an Amazon gift card, or a pass to attend a
gaming event, etc.?
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree

[46]
e) Strongly disagree

37.3%

Strongly Agree
0.6% Agree
1.9% Neutral
Disagree
16.3% 43.9% Strongly Disagree

[47]