The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Turkish Mobile Gaming Market: A Text Mining Application

Öz

As its prominence increases in our lives, digital entertainment is becoming an area where customer experience should be monitored more closely. The mobile gaming market has been attracting investments worldwide in recent years since mobile games allow both adults and children to have fun in any place and any time due to their portability and ease of access. The rapid growth trend observed in mobile games due to technological developments has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining how such major transformation shocks affect a market with a high growth potential is critical. Aiming to reveal the impact of the pandemic on the Turkish mobile gaming market, consumer reviews in a specific genre were collected, and how players’ behavior were changed due to the pandemic were compared employing correspondence analysis and topic modeling. The findings of both techniques revealed that the problems and topics discussed during the pandemic differed from those detected before it. The proposed framework, which was employed considering a limited number of games that belonged to a specific genre, can be easily adapted to other games and mobile applications with consumer reviews written in different languages.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• mobile games
• text mining
• sentiment analysis
• topic modeling
• correspondence analysis

COVID-19 Pandemisinin Türkiye Mobil Oyun Pazarına Etkisi: Bir Metin Madenciliği Uygulaması

Öz

Giderek hayatımızda daha büyük yer edinen dijital eğlence, müşteri deneyimi ve davranışlarının yakından izlenmesi gereken bir alan haline gelmiştir. Taşınabilirliği sayesinde insanların herhangi bir mekânda ve zamanda eğlenmesine olanak sağlayan mobil oyunlar, çocuklar kadar yetişkinlere de hitap ederek daha kazançlı hale gelmiş; böylelikle mobil oyun pazarı, küresel ölçekte son yıllarda daha fazla yatırım çekmeye başlamıştır. Teknolojik gelişmeler sayesinde mobil oyunlarda gözlenen hızlı büyüme eğilimi, COVID-19 pandemisi nedeniyle ivme kazanmıştır. Böyle dönüşüm şoklarının büyüme potansiyeli yüksek bir sektörü nasıl etkilediğini incelemek önemlidir. Pandeminin oyun pazarına olan etkisini, oyuncu davranışlarını inceleyerek ortaya koymayı amaçlayan bu çalışmada, belli bir oyun türüne ait Türkçe kullanıcı yorumları toplanmış, kullanıcıların pandemi öncesindeki ve sonrasındaki duyguları uyum analizi ve konu modellemesi sayesinde karşılaştırılmıştır. Her iki yöntem de pandemi sonrasında öne çıkan sorunların ve konu başlıklarının pandemi öncesine kıyasla farklılaştığını ortaya koymaktadır. Tek bir türden kısıtlı sayıda oyun göz önünde bulundurularak uygulanan metodolojik çerçeve, farklı dillerde yazılmış yorumlara sahip başka oyunlara ve mobil uygulamalara da kolaylıkla uyarlanabilir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• mobil oyunlar
• metin madenciliği
• duygu analizi
• konu modellemesi
• uyum analizi

Kaynakça

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