An empirical investigation of eWOM and used video game trading: The moderation effects of product features.

With the rise of social media platforms and online communities, the impact of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) increasingly interests academics and practitioners. Psychological theories of consumer choice suggest that consumers' reliance on online reviews varies based on their heterogeneous individual traits and preferences. We propose that firms can infer consumer heterogeneities through product features consumers are interested in. The video game market provides us an ideal research context to investigate whether and how consumers in each product sub-category would respond to eWOM differently. Specifically, this research empirically examines the effect of eWOM on used video games' price decline and investigates the moderating role of two product features: games' violence level and social orientation. In general, we find that the extent of used video games’ price decline is positively and significantly associated with review volume, negativity, subjectivity, and readability. Furthermore, our results reveal interesting contrasts between games with different violence levels as well as games with different social orientation. We find that players of high-violence games react more negatively to review volume than players of low-violence games. Meanwhile, compared to users of single player games, users of socially interactive games react more negatively to review readability and negativity. We contribute to eWOM literature by theoretically emphasizing and justifying the important moderating role of individual predispositions based on the psychological choice model. The results suggest how review platforms and firms can tailor review recommendations and presentations across various products even within the same product market.