Well-known movie stars are not only relevant for feature films and TV series. Today, the influence of movie stars also extends to video games, for which budgets in the hundreds of millions are available. Until now, there have been no studies that have looked at the economic impact of movie stars on the success of video games.
This is now changing thanks to a new study by Prof. Marchand and Dr. Weber published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing. The study is freely available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/10949968241274693
The authors show empirically that casting movie stars as game characters has a positive impact on ratings, which in turn influence the success of the game. Well-known movie stars can therefore both increase the quality of a game and at the same time reduce uncertainty about the game. However, this effect varies depending on the characteristics of the game.
Based on these results, the authors develop an interactive dashboard that allows managers to simulate how they can strategically use star power to increase the success of a game. This dashboard is available for free at www.bit.ly/gamestarforecast