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Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games

The mobile game “Immortal Conquest,” created by NetEase Games, caused a dramatic user dissatisfaction event after an introduction of a sudden and uninvited “pay-to-win” update. As a result, many players filed grievances against NetEase in a court. The official game website issued three apologies, wi...

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Autores principales: Che, ShaoPeng, Nan, Dongyan, Kamphuis, Pim, Zhang, Shunan, Kim, Jang Hyun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8854284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35185736
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823415
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author Che, ShaoPeng
Nan, Dongyan
Kamphuis, Pim
Zhang, Shunan
Kim, Jang Hyun
author_facet Che, ShaoPeng
Nan, Dongyan
Kamphuis, Pim
Zhang, Shunan
Kim, Jang Hyun
author_sort Che, ShaoPeng
collection PubMed
description The mobile game “Immortal Conquest,” created by NetEase Games, caused a dramatic user dissatisfaction event after an introduction of a sudden and uninvited “pay-to-win” update. As a result, many players filed grievances against NetEase in a court. The official game website issued three apologies, with mix results, to mitigate the crisis. The goal of the present study is to understand user feedback content from the perspective of Situational Crisis Communication Theory through semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis to explore how an enterprise’s crisis communication strategy affects users’ attitudes. First, our results demonstrate that the diminishing crisis communication strategies (excuse and justification) do not change players’ negative attitudes. It was not a failure because it successfully alleviated the players’ legal complaints and refocused their attention on the game itself. Second, the rebuild (apology & compensation) strategy was effective because it significantly increased the percentage of positive emotions and regenerated expectations for the game. The litigation crisis was identified within gamer communications with respect to Chinese gaming companies for the first time. Nevertheless, this does not indicate an increase in overall legal awareness among the larger Chinese population. It may only reflect greater legal awareness among Chinese online gamers. Fourth, gamers emphasized that they and enterprises should be equally involved when communicating with each other. Finally, in-game paid items should be reasonably priced, otherwise, they will drive users to competitors.
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spelling pubmed-88542842022-02-19 Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games Che, ShaoPeng Nan, Dongyan Kamphuis, Pim Zhang, Shunan Kim, Jang Hyun Front Psychol Psychology The mobile game “Immortal Conquest,” created by NetEase Games, caused a dramatic user dissatisfaction event after an introduction of a sudden and uninvited “pay-to-win” update. As a result, many players filed grievances against NetEase in a court. The official game website issued three apologies, with mix results, to mitigate the crisis. The goal of the present study is to understand user feedback content from the perspective of Situational Crisis Communication Theory through semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis to explore how an enterprise’s crisis communication strategy affects users’ attitudes. First, our results demonstrate that the diminishing crisis communication strategies (excuse and justification) do not change players’ negative attitudes. It was not a failure because it successfully alleviated the players’ legal complaints and refocused their attention on the game itself. Second, the rebuild (apology & compensation) strategy was effective because it significantly increased the percentage of positive emotions and regenerated expectations for the game. The litigation crisis was identified within gamer communications with respect to Chinese gaming companies for the first time. Nevertheless, this does not indicate an increase in overall legal awareness among the larger Chinese population. It may only reflect greater legal awareness among Chinese online gamers. Fourth, gamers emphasized that they and enterprises should be equally involved when communicating with each other. Finally, in-game paid items should be reasonably priced, otherwise, they will drive users to competitors. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8854284/ /pubmed/35185736 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823415 Text en Copyright © 2022 Che, Nan, Kamphuis, Zhang and Kim. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Che, ShaoPeng
Nan, Dongyan
Kamphuis, Pim
Zhang, Shunan
Kim, Jang Hyun
Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games
title Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games
title_full Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games
title_fullStr Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games
title_full_unstemmed Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games
title_short Examining Crisis Communication Using Semantic Network and Sentiment Analysis: A Case Study on NetEase Games
title_sort examining crisis communication using semantic network and sentiment analysis: a case study on netease games
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8854284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35185736
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823415
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