MOBA as a Stage: Explaining Purchase Behavior through different Strategies of Self-Presentation

The sale of virtual items has become a major part of revenue for the industry of computer games. Nonetheless, there is a lack of understanding what strategies people utilize within their decision to buy virtual items. Within the Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game genre, virtual items possess no functional value, on the contrary decorative and social motivators can be detected. We apply the theory of self-presentation (SPT) to capture this phenomenon. With the proposal of our study, we aim for a better understanding of preconditions of online self-presentation and the subsequent effects on past purchases. Thus, we propose a research model consisting of personal and social influences explaining different strategies of online self-presentation, which have varied effects on purchases of virtual items.