EWOM of Genshin Impact: from a process perspective

1. Literature review

With the rapid development of Internet, electronic word-of-mouth (hereafter called eWOM) becomes more and more significant in the filed of marketing research. The extent literature have identified that eWOM plays an important role in the consumer behavior (eg., information adoption, consumer recommendations and consumer engagement). (Chu & Kim, 2011[1]) investigated determinants of consumer engagement in eWOM in SNSs, and identify tie strength, trust, normative and informational influence are positively associated with users’ overall eWOM behavior, whereas a negative relationship was found with regard to homophily. (Erkan & Evans, 2016 [2])developed a integrated model (named Information Acceptance Model) based on Information Adoption Model (IAM) and Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to confirm that quality, credibility, usefulness, adoption of information, needs of information and attitude towards information are key factors of eWOM in social media that influence consumers’ purchase intentions. (Yang, 2017[3]) explored three predictors to eWOM intentions: experience factor, knowledge sharing factors and technology acceptance factors. Furthermore, he also examined the moderating role of technology acceptance factors on the relationships between experience/knowledge sharing factors and eWOM intentions. From a perspective of product, (Park & Lee, 2009 [4]) discovered that the eWOM effect plays a greater role in experience goods than in search goods. (Lee & Shin, 2014 [5]) examined that review quality has different effects on the purchase intention for experienced goods and search goods. (Lin & Kalwani, 2018 [6]) built a conceptual model of eWOM signaling and screening to test the cross-cultural factors’ impact on the relationship between eWOM and product.

Besides, the platform is also a key factor in the research of eWOM. (Lee & Youn, 2009 [7]) found that when the review is positive, the eWOM platforms have the impact on consumer willingness to recommend the products to friends. (Tsao & Hsieh, 2015 [8]) designed an experiment to identify that the type of eWOM platforms moderate the influence of eWOM quality on eWOM credibility and purchase intention, especially in search goods. (Xu & Lee, 2020 [9]) found that linguistic characteristic, content of consumer reviews and managerial responses differ depending on platforms, by using a text mining approach to analyze data in the hotel industry. From the aspect of eWOM’s message, (Park & Kim, 2008 [10]) found that the effect of cognitive fit (the type of reviews) on purchase intention is stronger for experts than for novices while the effect of the number of reviews on purchase intention is stronger for novices than experts. (Teng & Khong, 2014 [11]) proposed that argument quality, source credibility, source attractiveness, source perception and source style are critical antecedents of persuasive eWOM messages. (Bao & Tang, 2014 [12]) demonstrated that eWOM of opinion leaders drives product sales due to their product experience and knowledge background.

As mentioned above, researchers have contributed a lot to the field of eWOM. However, most articles focused on the specific factors related to eWOM, such as product types, platforms, messages, adoption, impact, etc. Regrettably, they neglected that eWOM, as a type of communication, is a process. According to the definition given by Em Griffin, _‘Communication is the relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response [13] eWOM should also be a kind of relational process and researchers can fix more attention on this. And in this report, I will discuss the case ‘Genshin Impact (hereafter called Genshin)’ from a process perspective, and the analysis framework is mainly based on the research conducted by A. Rosario [14], who conceptualized three distinct stages in the eWOM process: eWOM creation, eWOM exposure and eWOM evaluation. As for the eWOM creation, consumers should be willing to create original and share existing content. The motivations of creation include altruism, social value from interaction, hedonic benefits, impression management and identity formation, balance restoration, venting, retribution, economic incentives. Also, opportunity to create based on instant internet access, low posting costs, variety of eWOM formats is important. And consumers should maintain the ability to create based on product knowledge, tech skill, proficiency, competencies. Referring to the eWOM exposure, there are some noticeable points. Consumers might actively seek exposure or accidentally be exposed to eWOM. Exposure depends on opportunities such as Internet access, platform characteristics or network effects. Generally speaking, consumers have motivations to actively seek exposure for reducing pre-purchase evaluation effort, perceived risks or just for the leisure. Finally, eWOM evaluation is also a concerned part. Usually, consumers’ motivation to evaluate eWOM are influenced by receivers, senders, message characteristics, opportunities determined by context and abilities of evaluations, like cognitive resources and prior knowledge.

2. Topic selection - Genshin Impact

In this report, I will choose Genshin as the study object. Genshin is a young brand in digital games, which was launched in Sept. 2020_._ As is known to all, Chinese digital game industry is a red ocean market. However, since 2020, relying on the huge success of Genshin, Mihoyo[15] (parent firm name) has become the TOP3 company in game industry. And the success of Genshin is closely related to the eWOM. For example, in the UGC platform Bilibili, there are more than 7 millions videos and over 60 billions view counts in the channel of Genshin.[16] Among such a large scale data, there are lots of players spontaneously create and upload videos related to Genshin, and these numerous videos will be exposed to the audiences, who might become the potential players. This is a typical eWOM process. Of course, similar phenomena are happening not only in domestic platforms (like Douyin, Kuaishou, Xigua, etc) but also in the foreign platforms (like FB, X, YouTube, etc). So, as a world-renowned brand, which is tightly related to eWOM, Genshin is a perfect study object. For a better understanding, I would like to draw the study boundary of this research. Genshin is a digital game, which is special compared with other ordinary goods. Game, as a ninth art in the world, in my opinion, is a kind of cultural product, which is highly connected to consumers’ experience. So, the product discussed in this study is ‘experience good’ and the analysis framework of eWOM communication is paid more attention on the ‘culture’.

Besides, the reason why I choose Genshin as my study object is also related to the sub-par performance of Genshin’s eWOM managerial policy. With these three years’ development, Genshin seems like used to ‘lying down policy’, which is a passive way to face the negative eWOM. They choose to not respond to the negative information and wait this kind of news fading way itself. For example, in April 2023, a Bilibili up ‘Chunshui’ posted a video to attack the Genshin’s pricing strategy, which is widely spreaded on the Internet. But Mihoyo did not do any response as usual. Except that, in the period of ‘Zhangcao’, which is a network word to describe that users have nothing to do in the game, Genshin’s operation team do not pay attention to the eWOM, and just wait for the next new game character to make topic propagation. In conclusion, Genshin focus on their game’s script shaping and character shaping, which is the key of their success, and also consumers are willing to actively propagandize Genshin themselves. But actually, as a mature brand, they should do more and better in terms of eWOM.

3. Discussion

3.1 Managerial guidelines

In this part, I will draw a eWOM communication outline for Genshin in details from a process perspective, which will be divided into three parts as mentioned in Section 1.

(1) EWOM creation

Benefit from the development of mobile Internet and social media platforms (eg., Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, etc) and the emergence of graphic and video editing tools (eg., Jianyin, Bijian, etc.), users have a fair chance to create eWOM contents without specialized knowledge. So, Genshin should focus on the construction of incentive mechanism to motivate users to create eWOM content. Firstly, Genshin should launch interesting topics for users. In terms of game content, it has done a really good work. But they can do other activities, like cooperation with museums and intangible cultural heritage, which can gather a good deal of support from both consumers and society. Users can realize social value from it and it’s also a kind of impression management for the potential users. Secondly, they can construct a good economic incentive mechanism to motivate users. For example, when users’ contents reach a set amount of view counts, likes or other indexes, they can be rewarded with gifts, cash or game tokens. Thirdly, Genshin should pay more attention to their own community, which provides users with a significant platform of identity formation.

(2) EWOM exposure

There are two parts of eWOM exposure. Firstly, Genshin should increase the eWOM communication which might be ‘accidentally’ exposed to new users. For example, the cooperation with different zones’ up-loaders to create eWOM content can effectively attract potential users. Secondly, aiming at users who actively seek for exposure, there are several situations, the main of which when users seek for exposure is that Genshin launches a new game character. And there will be two parties to make eWOM communication on Internet. One is taking care of character’s strength and the other is considering character’s traits, story lines. If Genshin wanna users focusing on the character itself, it should try to lead users, like supporting up-loaders’ re-creation around the character, which can also reduce pre-purchase evaluation for players. Also, users actively seek for exposure just for leisure. In this situation, Genshin has its advantages, because it maintains enough high-quality contents for users to re-create.

(3) EWOM evaluation

First of all, Genshin can motivate users to evaluate through incentive mechanism as mentioned above. Secondly, Genshin should increase opportunities for users to evaluate, like launching more kinds of activities, using more kinds of social platforms. Thirdly, Genshin should also educate users to know its emphasis on game content and give more supports for users who try to show the game maps, story lines, the mixed meanings of virtual world and the reality. Of course, they should construct a system to trace users evaluations.

(4) EWOM managerial Model
eWOM creation → eWOM exposure → eWOM evaluation
(image)

3.2 Managerial implications

This study suggested an model, which is down-to-earth for brands or companies to follow. Previous research focused on the relationship of eWOM factors, like product type as a moderator between eWOM and platforms, or a static analysis on the impacts, persuasion effects, antecedents of eWOM’s some specific attributes. This study provided a macroscopic guideline to the marketers and implicated that brands should not only focused on the specific data, like sales, exposures of their products, but also pay more attention on the whole process of eWOM communication.

3.3 Limitations

The model I suggested in this study is still a rough outline, and more attention is paid on the practical part. From an academical aspect, it lacks empirical support or a real down-to-earth project to identify the whole work flow. Besides, eWOM communication as a significant tool of marketing, it can be combined with the customer-based brand equity theory[17], which may provide more concrete measurement methods to monitor every stage of eWOM process. Also, in the eWOM creation part, Douglas Holt and Douglas Cameron’s theory can also be a good choice. In their opinion, cultural innovation is to deliver an innovative cultural expression, composed of ideology, myth and codes[18], which can provide marketers with an operable approach to deliver appropriate contents for consumers to share and recreate. So, in the future work, more theories can be combined together to make eWOM process better.

Reference

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[15] URL: https://www.mihoyo.com/

[16] URL: https://www.bilibili.com/v/channel/7945544/?tab=featured

[17] Keller, K. L. (1993). Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity. Journal of Marketing, 57(1), 1.

[18] Douglas Holt & Douglas Cameron. (2010) Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build Breakthrough Brands. Publisher: Oxford University Press.