Modeling word of mouth vs. media influence on videogame preorder decisions: A qualitative approach

• We opted for qualitative methods to explore the motives driving videogame players to preordering.
• We found that importance of the sources of information varies depending on the type of innovation.
• For continuous innovations, consumers ascribe importance to marketer-originated information.
• For discontinuous innovations, consumers attribute more importance to interpersonal sources.

In order to explore the motives that drive the players to decide for preordering a videogame innovation, we opted for qualitative methods. The motives cited were pooled and scrutinized to develop categories, classifying emerging themes into intrinsic and extrinsic level factors. The most salient finding of the extrinsic side of our model revealed that the importance of the sources of information for players varies depending on the type of the innovation. For continuous innovations, consumer attributed more importance to mass media and marketer-originated information. For discontinuous innovations, consumers attributed more importance to interpersonal sources, which included friends and online reviews. We expect that the identified issues and proposed model may guide for future research in the preordering phenomenon.