On the post-acceptance of mobile movie-themed games

•The study examines the effects of experiential marketing on post-acceptance of mobile movie game.•Five experiential motives-thematic attractiveness, enjoyment, flow, act, and relate are highlighted in the MMG contexts.•Loyalty to movie games can be determined by players’ flow, act, and relate.•Movie-watching intention is mainly derived from thematic attractiveness, enjoyment, act, and relate.•Gender differences are found in some theoretical relationships.

This research proposes a post-acceptance model of mobile movie-themed games (MMGs) from the perspective of experiential marketing with five experiential elements of MMGs: thematic attractiveness, perceived enjoyment, flow, act, and relate. The online survey method with structural equation modeling was used to empirically examine the proposed model. A total of 388 valid questionnaires from actual MMG users were collected. The potential gender differences were also investigated. The results present three theoretical contributions: (1) loyalty to movie games can be determined by flow, act, and relate; (2) movie-watching intention can be predicted by thematic attractiveness, perceived enjoyment, act, and relate; and (3) gender differences have been found in some theoretical relationships. Further managerial implications are discussed.