Sinicized Exploration of Sustainable Digital Fashion: Chinese Game Players’ Intention to Purchase Traditional Costume Skins

Abstract

Digitalization is not only blurring boundaries between the real world and virtual space, but, since COVID-19, it has also made the traditional fashion industry less reliant on physical materials. In this context, digital fashion and virtual design have emerged. Although China has started to digitally distribute cultural products based on the digitization of museums, there is still a gap in the field of digital fashion. In order to achieve the sustainable development of Chinese traditional costume culture and explore the Sinicization of digital fashion, this article proposes to transfer Chinese traditional costumes into a series of digitalized commodities, serving as computer game skins for online sales. This research involved the construction of a hypothetical model based on the technology acceptance model (TAM), including perceived usefulness, purchase price perceptions, perceived playfulness, cultural elements authenticity, satisfaction, and purchase intention through the related literature. In total, the survey data of 219 Chinese game players were collected, and a structural equation model (SEM) was constructed to verify these research hypotheses. The results showed that perceived playfulness and cultural elements authenticity had a positive effect on the players’ satisfaction and purchase intentions, whereas perceived usefulness had a negative influence on the players’ satisfaction and purchase intentions. In addition, purchase price perceptions had no significant negative effect on the players’ satisfaction or their purchase intentions. Overall, this study contributes to the co-development of digital fashion and traditional costume culture in China, as well as the improvement of product design and marketing management for game companies.