To Mod or Not to Mod—An Empirical Study on Game Modding as Customer Value Co-Creation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The aim of the study is to identify the customers’ inclination to perform game modding as a form of value co-creation in favour of companies and other game users. To this end, interviews and focus groups were conducted with Polish game players (including mod users and mod creators).
Strengths and weaknesses:
The purposes of the manuscript are clearly defined and the manuscript is well structured, but, in my opinion, the methodology is not suitable for investigating the type of subject analysed. If the interviews were performed, why was the content analysis not developed using, for example, NVivo software? The transcription of the interviews need not be presented in the manuscript. What is needed is to make a qualitative analysis of the data;
Several references are presented, but few are recent. There is no reference from 2020, only one from 2019, none from 2018 and only two from 2017;
For me, it is rare that there are no women in the in-depth interviews and I do not understand the number of 36 game players that is mentioned in the text, when Table 4 does not present this number;
There are some problems with the language. There are some errors in the document, as “Epirical” instead of “Empirical”, “week” instead of “weak” and “than” instead of “then” (see improvements at the end of this review);
In abstract, the words “Purpose”, “Methodology”, “Findings”, “Practical Implications”, and “Originality/Value” are not necessary;
More keywords are recommended;
The following improvements should also be considered:
Line 2: Replace “Epirical” with “Empirical”;
Line 18: Replace “week” with “weak”;
Line 71: Replace “than” with “then”;
Line 178: Replace “For example polish company” with “For example, Polish company”.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to express our gratitude for your feedback that will enrich our work. The manuscript that we enclose is revised in correspondence with the comments and suggestions you provided. The detailed information on changes introduced in the paper and how we addressed each specific comment is presented in the attached document.
Yours faithfully,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a manuscript on game modding as customer value co-creation. The paper has merit and deserves publication, after the authors incorporate some adjustments.
The introduction is appropriate and the research question is clearly identified. Although the literature review is of an acceptable level, there is a margin for improvement. Moreover, please avoid using bullet points in the text. The authors also need to sell in a better way how they add to the existing theories – particularly, what is novel here and why is it important?
The data analysis is accurate and the results are properly presented, taking into account the research goals.
The discussion section is short and could be better structured. Please elaborate on the theoretical and practical/managerial implications. Also, the limitations and future research are very incipient and should not end the paper. I suggest the inclusion of a brief (only one wrap-up paragraph) separate conclusion section at the end. Thank you and good luck with developing this interesting line of research.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to express our gratitude for your feedback that will enrich our work. The manuscript that we enclose is revised in correspondence with the comments and suggestions you provided. The detailed information on changes introduced in the paper and how we addressed each specific comment is presented in the attached document.
Yours faithfully,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript has been significantly improved.
