Group identification as a mediator of the effect of players’ anonymity on cheating in online games

This study aims to add to the discussion about the applicability of the classical deindividuation theory and social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) in explaining online behaviours. It explores the effect of anonymity in facilitating social influence of group identity in online game cheating. A nationally representative survey was conducted face to face. Results from the survey administered in Singapore confirm predictions derived from the SIDE and challenge the classical deindividuation theory. Specifically, it was concluded that the frequency of gaming with online strangers (anonymous gaming) significantly predicted the frequency of cheating in online games. The effect of anonymity on game cheating was found to be significantly mediated by the group identification with online gaming communities/groups. Gender differences were found. Male gamers cheated more frequently than female gamers. Female gamers are more likely to cheat as a consequence of group identification than male gamers. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Loyalty Due to Others: The Relationships Among Challenge,Interdependence, and Online Gamer Loyalty

Previous studies have established that online gamers favor online social activities, implying that gamer loyalty to a game may be associated with that of other gamers. However, exactly how gamer loyalty to a game depends on the presence of other gamers remains unknown. This study investigates relationships among gaming challenge, interdependence, and gamer loyalty. The study sample comprises 994 online gamers. Analytical results indicate that (1) gaming challenge is positively related to interdependence; (2) interdependence is positively related to gamer loyalty; and (3) gaming challenge is positively related to gamer loyalty. Results of this study provide game designers with further insight into how to strengthen gamer loyalty directly and indirectly by enhancing gamer‐gamer interdependence.     

How Do Online Game Communities Retain Gamers? Social Presence and Social Capital Perspectives

While online game communities have been found to be useful for retaining gamers, the mechanism underlying this phenomenon is not fully understood. Knowledge about such mechanism enables managers of online games to effectively retain their customers. This study thus investigates how network convergence and interdependence—2 characteristics of online game social networks—fuel gamers' continuance intention. Social presence and social capital theories were used for developing the study hypotheses, and responses from 1,467 online gamers were used in the analysis. The findings indicate that both network convergence and interdependence are positively related to sense of community and relational switching cost (coefficients ranging from .20 to .50), which further contribute to gamer continuance intention (coefficients ranging from .13 to .72).     

“Girls can't play”: The effects of stereotype threat on females' gaming performance

The current study examined the impact of stereotype threat on female online gamers' performance and further examined whether manipulating the availability of multiple social identities effectively eliminated these performance decrements. Further, participants' implicit attitudes towards female online gamers were assessed. Eighty-one participants (60 female) were assigned to one of four experimental conditions: 1), stereotype threat, 2), multiple social identities, 3), female control, and 4), male control. They completed an Implicit Association Test and a gaming task. The number of coins collected in a 5-min time period provided a measure of gameplay performance. Results indicated that stereotype threatened females underperformed on the gaming task relative to males in the control condition. The intervention of multiple social identities successfully protected females' gameplay performance from stereotype threat. Additionally, differences were found between conditions in implicit attitudes pertaining to gender-gaming competence. This research highlights the harmful effects of negative stereotypes on females' gaming performance, and suggests that these decrements may be eliminated when females identify with an alternative positive social identity.     

Sexism in online video games: The role of conformity to masculine norms and social dominance orientation

Sexism toward women in online video game environments has become a pervasive and divisive issue in the gaming community. In this study, we sought to determine what personality traits, demographic variables, and levels of game play predicted sexist attitudes towards women who play video games. Male and female participants (N = 301) who were players of networked video games were invited to participate in an anonymous online survey. Social dominance orientation and conformity to some types of masculine norms (desire for power over women and the need for heterosexual self-presentation) predicted higher scores on the Video Game Sexism Scale (i.e., greater sexist beliefs about women and gaming). Implications for the social gaming environment and female gamers are discussed.     

The social side of gaming: How playing online computer games creates online and offline social support

Online gaming has gained millions of users around the globe, which have been shown to virtually connect, to befriend, and to accumulate online social capital. Today, as online gaming has become a major leisure time activity, it seems worthwhile asking for the underlying factors of online social capital acquisition and whether online social capital increases offline social support. In the present study, we proposed that the online game players’ physical and social proximity as well as their mutual familiarity influence bridging and bonding social capital. Physical proximity was predicted to positively influence bonding social capital online. Social proximity and familiarity were hypothesized to foster both online bridging and bonding social capital. Additionally, we hypothesized that both social capital dimensions are positively related to offline social support. The hypotheses were tested with regard to members of e-sports clans. In an online survey, participants (N = 811) were recruited via the online portal of the Electronic Sports League (ESL) in several countries. The data confirmed all hypotheses, with the path model exhibiting an excellent fit. The results complement existing research by showing that online gaming may result in strong social ties, if gamers engage in online activities that continue beyond the game and extend these with offline activities.     

Typology and Sociodemographic Characteristics of Massively Multiplayer Online Game Players

To date, there has been relatively little research comparing different types of online gamers. The main aim of this study was to provide robust benchmark data on different types of Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) players using a large sample of online gamers. An online survey was used to recruit 4,374 Hungarian online gamers from websites offering different types of MMOGs. In addition to sociodemographic characteristics, the study also collected data on gaming preference, amount of time spent gaming, amount of money spent on the game, and whether they played at an amateur or professional level. A latent profile analysis of gaming preferences differentiated between eight specific gamer types, of which four types emerged as clear categories, indicating clear preference for a specific type of game (role-playing games, first-person shooter games, real-time strategy games, and other games). Overall, 79% of gamers belonged to these four categories. First-person shooter gamers were almost exclusively male, younger aged, lower educated, and of lower socioeconomic status. Real-time strategy gamers were older. Female gamers were most likely to play “Other” games and/or role-playing games. In relation to time spent gaming, role-playing gamers appeared to be the most vulnerable. The results indicated that a significant number of gamers have clear gaming preferences, and these specific gaming types are associated with significant differences regarding sociodemographic and gaming characteristics of gamers.     

Altered Visual Perception in Game Transfer Phenomena: An Empirical Self-Report Study

The aim of this study was to identify, classify, and explain gamers’ perceptual experiences referred to as Visual Game Transfer Phenomena (VGTP) to contribute to the understanding of the effects of post-video-game playing and encourage healthy and safe gaming. A total of 656 experiences from 483 gamers were collected from 54 online gaming forums. The findings suggest that intensive playing can result in misperceptions and visual distortions of real-life objects and environments, stereotypical visual experiences that arise from mind visualization, and pseudo-hallucinatory experiences with video game content. Gamers’ experiences can be explained by the interplay of physiological, perceptual, and cognitive mechanisms. Observation of video game features suggests that in most cases a relationship between the games’ structural characteristics, gamers’ VGTP experiences, and gamers’ playing habits appeared relevant. VGTP can occur while gaming, immediately after stopping play, or after some delay. Further VGTP characteristics and their psychosocial implications are discussed.     

Public Displays of Play: Studying Online Games in Physical Settings

As research on virtual worlds gains increasing attention in educational, commercial, and military domains, a consideration of how player populations are ‘reassembled’ through social scientific data is a timely matter for communication scholars. This paper describes a large‐scale study of virtual worlds in which participants were recruited at public gaming events, as opposed to through online means, and explores the dynamic relationships between players and contexts of play that this approach makes visible. Challenging conventional approaches to quantitatively driven virtual worlds research, which categorizes players based on their involvement in an online game at a particular point in time, this account demonstrates how players' networked gaming activities are contingent on who they are playing with, where, and when.     

Psychosocial causes and consequences of pathological gaming

Pathological use of computer and video games has been associated with indicators of psychosocial well-being, such as loneliness, low self-esteem, low social competence, and low life satisfaction. However, few studies have decisively demonstrated whether these indicators of psychosocial well-being are causes or consequences of pathological gaming. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a two-wave panel study among 851 Dutch adolescents (543 gamers). Causal relations were analyzed using autoregressive structural equation models. These analyses indicated that social competence, self-esteem, and loneliness were significant predictors of pathological gaming six months later. Thus, lower psychosocial well-being can be considered an antecedent of pathological gaming among adolescent gamers. Our analyses further indicated that loneliness was also a consequence of pathological gaming. This suggests that displacement of real-world social interaction resulting from pathological use of video games may deteriorate existing relationships, which could explain the increase in adolescent gamers’ feelings of loneliness.     

An instrument to build a gamer clustering framework according to gaming preferences and habits

In the era of digital gaming, there is a pressing need to better understand how people's gaming preferences and habits affect behavior and can inform educational game design. However, instruments available for such endeavor are rather informal and limited, lack proper evaluation, and often yield results that are hard to interpret. In this paper we present the design and preliminary validation (involving N = 754 Spanish secondary school students) of a simple instrument that, based on a 10-item Game Preferences Questionnaire (GPQ), classifies participants into four ‘clusters’ or types of gamers, allowing for easy interpretation of the results. These clusters are: (1) Full gamers, covering individuals that play all kinds of games with a high frequency; (2) Hardcore gamers, playing mostly first-person shooters and sport games; (3) Casual gamers, playing moderately musical, social and thinking games; and (4) Non-gamers, who do not usually play games of any kind. The instrument may have uses in psychology and behavioral sciences, as there is evidence suggesting that attitudes towards gaming affects personal attitudes and behavior. Besides, we propose applying the instrument to help designers of educational games to get better tailored their games to their target audiences.     

Enhancing one life rather than living two: Playing MMOs with offline friends

We use ethnographic, interview, and survey data to examine problematic play within the popular online game, World of Warcraft, or ‘WoW’ for short. Research shows that players drawn to the interpersonal dimensions of online games are more prone to experience negative outcomes associated with their computer use. Our study suggests that it is not only whether online gamers seek meaningful social interactions that determine if WoW play becomes problematic, but exactly how players interact with others in online game-worlds. Specifically, levels of problematic WoW play depend on the extent gamers play with offline or ‘real-life’ friends and relations. Our survey data reveals both a direct relationship between playing WoW with offline friends and problematic online gaming and also an indirect one mediated by ‘immersion’ (defined as the extent that players feel like they are in a virtual world and in some cases actually their character). Interpreting these results through ethnographic and interview data, we suggest that playing WoW with real-life-friends allows gamers to transfer in-game accomplishments and experiences into offline social networks. Rather than competing and conflicting with the world outside of the game, WoW played in this way tends to enhance gamers’ offline lives. Further, by keeping gamers in touch with perspectives outside of WoW, playing with real-life-friends instills critical distance and greater awareness of how excessive play can damage offline commitments and relationships, allowing gamers to better monitor, evaluate, and ultimately regulate excessive game-play.     

Internet Gaming Disorder: the interplay between physical activity and user–avatar relationship

Understanding both the risk and protective factors associated with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has been viewed by many in the gaming studies field as an area of research priority. The present study focused on the potential risk and protective effects of user–avatar (game figure) relationship and physical activity (PA), respectively. To address these aims, a cross-sectional and a longitudinal mixed-methods design were combined (comprising both psychological and physiological assessments). A sample of 121 emerging adult gamers (18–29 years) residing in Australia, who played massively multiplayer online games, were assessed in relation to their IGD behaviours using the nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form. Additionally, the Proto-Self-Presence (PSP) scale was used to evaluate the extent to which gamers identified with the body of their avatar. Finally, a PA monitor (Fitbit Flex) measured levels of energy consumed during real-world daily activities (active minutes). A number of linear regressions and moderation analyses were conducted. Findings confirmed that PSP functioned as an IGD risk factor and that PA acted protectively, weakening the association between PSP and IGD behaviours. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to IGD treatment and gaming development aspects.     

The role of trait emotional intelligence in gamers’ preferences for play and frequency of gaming

This paper examines the role of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) in gamers’ preferences for play and frequency of gaming in a sample of 1051 young adult US/European gamers, who play frequently the online massively multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (WoW). Trait EI was shown to predict social and achievement preferences for play as well as frequency of gaming. In particular, trait EI was positively correlated to a preference for social practices per se and negatively correlated to a preference for achievement-oriented, instrumental practices. These findings advocate that gamers’ preferences for play are in accordance with their emotion-related personality characteristics. Trait EI was also negatively associated with frequency of gaming suggesting that lower scorers on trait EI are more likely associated with more frequent game use.     

The Identification and Influence of Social Roles in a Social Media Product Community

This research focuses on the identification of social roles and an investigation of their influence in online context. Relying on a systemic approach for role conceptualization, we investigate member's activity, shared content and position in the network within a consumer to consumer social media‐based community (SMC) around a product. This investigation led to the identification of ten core roles, based on three key elements: object of interest (product, practice, and community), main contribution type (sharing information and seeking information), individual orientation (factual, emotional). We propose an explanation about how these roles, through their positioning, participate in the community dynamics and how they contribute to the creation and diffusion of cookery as a social practice, shaping the periphery around this practice.     

Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital,Civic Engagement and Political Participation

Recently, scholars tested how digital media use for informational purposes similarly contributes to foster democratic processes and the creation of social capital. Nevertheless, in the context of today's socially‐networked‐society and the rise of social media applications (i.e., Facebook) new perspectives need to be considered. Based on U.S. national data, results show that after controlling for demographic variables, traditional media use offline and online, political constructs (knowledge and efficacy), and frequency and size of political discussion networks, seeking information via social network sites is a positive and significant predictor of people's social capital and civic and political participatory behaviors, online and offline.     

Video games in adolescence and emotional functioning: Emotion regulation,emotion intensity,emotion expression,and alexithymia

Video-game users represent 40% of the French population and adolescents are the primary users. Yet excessive playing of video games has become a problem in modern society and is manifesting itself in treatment centers for adolescents. Before attempting to gain insight into this problematic use, we must understand video gaming itself and its implications for the gamer. The aim of this research is to propose an understanding of video-game playing based on some dimensions of emotional functioning such as emotion regulation, emotion intensity, emotion expression, and alexithymia. A total of 159 adolescents took part in the study. Regular gamers regulated their emotions more than irregular gamers did. They also felt their emotions more intensely. But regular gamers expressed their emotions less than irregular gamers did. Finally, the regular gamers' alexithymia level was higher than the irregular gamers' level. Especially, they had more difficulty being emotionally reactive. The avatar's evolution in the virtual environment may help mediate adolescents' problematic emotional experiences to give them meaning and enable their appropriation. As such, video games may act as a medium for projecting and experiencing one's emotional life by staging the emotional self, thereby explaining the engagement of adolescents in video gaming.     

(A)Social reputation: Exploring the relationship between online video game involvement and social competence

Affordable and accessible Internet has changed the way video games are played, allowing individuals to connect worldwide in shared gaming spaces. On the surface participation within these environments may seem socially beneficial, as these highly social, playful spaces allow players to connect, interact with, and learn from others. However, there is a growing concern that increased participation within online gaming environments comes with a wide variety of social consequences, contributing to numerous losses in ‘offline’ sociability. While considerable research has examined these claims, consistent relationships between social competence and online video game involvement have yet to be established. The current work (N = 515) aimed to examine the extent to which online video game involvement may support, or undermine, the development and maintenance of traditional social skills. The results indicate that there are unique relationships between social skills and video game involvement within online gaming populations. However, among online video game players, these links were not as negative or broad as hypothesized. The results of this assessment dispute the anecdotal attribution of a global level of social ineptitude amongst online video game players and provide insight into the potential effects of online video game play on skill development and maintenance.     

Team participation and online gamer loyalty

Online games have emerged as popular computer applications and gamer loyalty is vital to game providers, since online gamers frequently switch between games. Online gamers often participate in teams also. This study investigates whether and how team participation improves loyalty. We utilized a cross-sectional design and an online survey, with 546 valid responses from online game subjects. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to assess measurement reliability and validity directly, and structural equation modeling was utilized to test our hypotheses. The results indicate that participation in teams motivates online gamers to adhere to team norms and satisfies their social needs, also enhancing their loyalty. The contribution of this research is the introduction of social norms to explain online gamer loyalty.     

User goals in social virtual worlds: A means-end chain approach

The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to investigate user goals in social virtual worlds; second, to introduce a methodological alternative (i.e., a means-end chain approach) for analyzing user goals in cyberspaces. The data were acquired from a web survey, and were analyzed by means-end chain analysis (MECA), which produces users’ goal structure in reference to a hierarchical system of interrelated goals (Olson & Reynolds, 1983). The results show that people come to social virtual worlds to satisfy their social and hedonic needs, and to escape from real world constraints, as do virtual community members and virtual gamers; they also pursue unique activities, such as creating virtual objects and selling them. On the other hand, by clarifying relations among users’ goals, MECA provides a richer explanation for user goals than prior research which only offers separate user goals for cyberspace users without explanation of relationship among goals.