IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orisre/v35y2024i4p1609-1633.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Platform Loophole Exploitation, Recovery Measures, and User Engagement: A Quasi-Natural Experiment in Online Gaming

Author

Listed:
  • Jianqing Chen

    (Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas 75080)

  • Shu He

    (Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611)

  • Xue Yang

    (Business School, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China)

Abstract

Online gaming platforms are inevitably subject to system loopholes such as bugs. Some players may take advantage of these bugs to gain benefits illegitimately, being viewed as rule breakers by platforms. Online platforms face a dilemma between disciplining rule breakers with the risk of being perceived as unfair to the rule breakers—because rule breaches are, after all, caused by the game software’s technical glitches and belong to a “gray area”—and not disciplining rule breakers with the risk of being perceived as unfair to the observers. Different recovery measures may result in significantly different economic impacts. In this study, we use the unique field data of an online gaming platform to examine the effects of players’ rule-breach behavior due to system bugs and the platform’s different recovery measures on players’ subsequent engagement. Using various empirical models, we find that the occurrence of bugs negatively impacts the observing players’ in-game online duration and consumption. Surprisingly, although the platform is responsible for the bugs, not punishing rule breakers leads to even larger reductions in observing players’ platform engagement than punishing them. We thus suggest that the primary driver of the engagement reduction is the platform’s inappropriate recovery measure, rather than the bugs, and call online platforms’ attention to designing effective rules and recovery measures under the situation of a rule breach. Our findings enrich the literature and theories concerning the relationships between online platform loophole exploitation, associated recovery measures, and sustained user engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • Jianqing Chen & Shu He & Xue Yang, 2024. "Platform Loophole Exploitation, Recovery Measures, and User Engagement: A Quasi-Natural Experiment in Online Gaming," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 1609-1633, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:35:y:2024:i:4:p:1609-1633
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.2020.0416
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2020.0416
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/isre.2020.0416?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:35:y:2024:i:4:p:1609-1633. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.