Research shows that the mobile game industry has grown exponentially and many mobile game companies are exercising freemium strategies. Selling more in-app mobile items is a way to increase the revenue of the mobile game companies. This study investigates the determining factors of users’ behavioral intention to use in-app purchase in mobile games by applying Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and UTAUT2. It examines the effects of five exogenous constructs (i.e., effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, price value, and habit) on one endogenous construct, behavioral intention to use in-app purchase. It also examines the moderating effects of gender. This study recruited survey participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The researcher uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze the responses from 402 respondents. The results showed that effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, price value and habit have positive effects on the formation of behavioral intention to use in-app purchase items. Social influence was not a significant factor influencing the behavioral intention. In order to check the moderating effect of gender, multi-group analysis was conducted. From the multi-group analysis, it was found that male users consider hedonic motivation more than female users do.
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