Bias in online reviews: The roles played by consumers and products in reviewing online games

Abstract

Prior research on online reviews has focused on investigating either the bias inherent in providing these reviews or the characteristics of users or products that lead to positive reviews. This study is different in that it controls for self-selection bias and incorporates both consumer and product characteristics, thereby providing a more realistic and holistic view of their impact on both the volume and the valence of reviews. We explore these issues in the context of a rapidly growing industry—online games—and use an uncensored dataset of game purchasers from a large online gaming platform. We examine consumer characteristics including friendship, ownership, and usage and product characteristics such as age, atypicality, and price. We draw on theories from information systems, marketing, and sociology to explain review and rating behaviors and create consumer segments by using the product's atypicality attributes to calculate consumers’ atypicality and variety-seeking levels. By distinguishing between review propensity (volume) and likelihood of a positive review (valence), we conclude that controlling for the propensity to review changes the previously held orthodoxy regarding the likelihood of a positive review. By exploring a more complete set of explanatory factors and testing our hypotheses on a large, uncensored dataset, our work provides a clearer picture of the intermingled influence of consumer and product characteristics on the provision of online reviews and their valence.