Experience goods are characterized by information asymmetry and a lack of ex ante knowledge of product quality, such that reliable external signals of quality are likely to be highly valued. Two potentially credible sources of such information are reviews from professional critics and 'word-of-mouth' from other consumers. This paper makes a direct comparison between the relative influences and interactions of reviews from both of these sources on the sales performance of video games software. In order to empirically estimate and separate the effects of the two signals, we analyze a sample of 1,480 video games and their sales figures between 2004 and 2010. We find evidence to suggest that, even after taking steps to control for endogeneity, reviews from professional critics have a significantly positive influence on sales which outweighs that from consumer reviews. We also find evidence to suggest that reviews from professional critics also interact significantly with other signals of product quality. Consequently, we contend that professional critics adopt the role of an influencer, whereas word-of-mouth opinion acts more as a predictor of sales in the market for video games.

Digital streaming has had a profound effect on the commercial music sector and now accounts for 80% of industry revenues in the United States. This study investigates the consumption of music on digital streaming platforms by analyzing the factors affecting the chart survival of individual music tracks. Our data are taken from the Spotify Global Top 200 between January 2017 and January 2020, containing observations on 3,007 unique tracks by 642 artists over 1,087 days. We identify a number of unique consumption traits applicable to online streaming services, which we use to explain variations in chart longevity. We find a positive association between the amount of time a track spends in the chart and the involvement of a major label. We also find that the level of competition from other chart entries, as well as some elements related to the pattern of diffusion, associates significantly with the likelihood of chart survival. The study highlights several important managerial implications for key industry stakeholders.

Since January 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak has been progressing at a rapid pace. To keep the pandemic at bay, countries have implemented various measures to interrupt the transmission of the virus from person to person and prevent an overload of their health systems. We analyze the impact of these measures implemented against the COVID-19 pandemic by using a sample of 68 countries, Puerto Rico and the 50 federal states of the United States of America, four federal states of Australia, and eight federal states of Canada, involving 6,941 daily observations. We show that measures are essential for containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. After controlling for daily COVID-19 tests, we find evidence to suggest that school closures, shut-downs of non-essential business, mass gathering bans, travel restrictions in and out of risk areas, national border closures and/or complete entry bans, and nationwide curfews decrease the growth rate of the coronavirus and thus the peak of daily confirmed cases. We also find evidence to suggest that combinations of these measures decrease the daily growth rate at a level outweighing that of individual measures. Consequently, and despite extensive vaccinations, we contend that the implemented measures help contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and ease the overstressed capacity of the healthcare systems.

Despite the enormous revenues generated by the video game industry in recent years, relatively little research has been undertaken into consumer preferences and the determinants of video game consumption. This study addresses this deficiency through the analysis of data from a popular online video game that includes historic behavioural information for 1,408 consumers participating in 728,811 unique rounds of gameplay. We analyse these data with the goal of estimating determinants of the aggregate amount of time that a consumer spends playing the game. Through the estimation of duration models, we show that less experienced consumers are less likely to continue playing the game at any given point, possibly due to having achieved mastery and becoming bored. However, we also find that consumers tend to play the game for longer periods when using a wider range of character roles and vehicles, implying that a consumer's interest can be maintained through exposure to greater variety. Our results represent the first such evidence on in‐game consumer preferences, which has important implications for video game consumption through optimisation of gameplay experiences to satisfy these preferences.

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