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.     

Developing culturally relevant design guidelines for encouraging healthy eating behavior

Unhealthy eating behavior is a major contributing factor to the onset of several diseases and health conditions (e.g., obesity, type 2 diabetes). It is therefore not surprising that health interventions aimed at modifying dietary behavior have been identified as the cornerstone treatment for many health conditions. Interventions that use persuasive technology can be effective for motivating healthy eating behavior, and recent years have witnessed an increasing number of persuasive technologies with the purpose of promoting healthy eating behavior or attitude by manipulating various determinants of healthy behavior. However, these applications generally take a one-size-fits-all approach that is biased toward individualistic cultures. To resolve this problem, we propose culturally relevant design approaches for tailoring persuasive technology interventions to collectivists and individualistic cultures. Our guidelines are based on a large-scale survey of 554 participants' (collectivist=306 and individualist=247) eating behavior and associated determinants – identified by Health Belief Model – to understand how healthy eating behavior relates to various cultural groups and sub-groups. We developed two models of healthy eating behavior for the collectivist and individualistic cultural groups identified by Hofstede, and an additional eight models to investigate the moderating effect of gender and age on healthy eating behavior. We then explored the similarities and differences between the models and developed persuasive profiles of motivators of healthy eating behavior for each group. Additionally, we proposed two approaches for designing culturally relevant persuasive applications based on our results. The first is a one-size-fits-all approach that will motivate the majority of the population, while not demotivating any user. The second is a personalized approach that will best motivate a particular cultural group. Finally, to make our approaches actionable in persuasive intervention design, we map the theoretical determinants of healthy eating behavior as identified by Health Belief Model to common persuasive system design strategies.     

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.     

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.     

Deconstructing persuasiveness of strategies in behaviour change systems using the ARCS model of motivation

Persuasive technologies (PTs) motivate behaviour change using various persuasive strategies. However, there is still a dearth of knowledge on how PTs motivate behaviour change and how to design systems to increase their persuasiveness. To provide empirical insight into the mechanism through which PTs persuade, we conducted a large-scale study with 543 participants to investigate the relation between Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction constructs from the ARCS model of motivation and 10 strategies that are commonly used in persuasive systems design. Our results show that the ARCS constructs collectively explain between 82% and 91% of the variance in persuasiveness across the ten strategies. Relevance, followed by Attention, has the strongest association with persuasiveness. The result generalises across gender groups. Therefore, to increase a system’s persuasiveness, designers should focus on designing to increase relevance and to capture user’s attention, while also promoting confidence and a feeling of satisfaction. We contribute to Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) and Persuasive Technology by offering design guidelines for PTs to increase their persuasiveness and hence efficacy.     

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).     

Mediating roles of self-presentation desire in online game community commitment and trust behavior of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), which allow simultaneous participation of several gamers, have attracted a great deal of attention recently. Since MMORPGs can be categorized as a type of online community, the behavior of MMORPGs users needs to be considered as the general behavior in online communities. However, previous studies of online communities did not pay enough attention to MMORPGs, in which users can express themselves by interacting actively through games and game avatars. Understanding the characteristics of MMORPGs as online game communities where users communicate and interact will allow games to be vitalized and users to be immersed in games in a more positive way. Hence, using self-presentation theory and social identity theory, this study examined the factors influencing self-presentation desire and the mediating role of self-presentation desire examined in terms of trust of and commitments to online game communities. The results showed that the interactivity in the spaces of MMORPGs had the biggest impacts on self-presentation desire; personal innovativeness and game design quality also was influential. The results also indicated that self-presentation desire caused trust of online games and eventually led to even stronger commitments to gamers.     

The relationship between online game playing motivation and selection of online game characters – the case of Taiwan

The alarming growth rate in the online game industry calls for a need of understanding the determinants of online gamers’ behaviour. Investigating how online gamers choose different online characters assists online game vendors to design characters that match the needs of different online gamers. Recently, numerous online game designers have introduced celebrity figures as characters for certain online games. The popularity of those celebrities has resulted in greater awareness of these games, and hopefully further increases the playability of online games. While different online gamers are motivated by different desires for playing, it is insufficiently researched whether these online celebrity characters have actually altered players’ choice in giving preference to these games. Thus, this study conducts an experimental design to study the reasons behind players’ choice of characters by studying how online games perceive the interpersonal attractiveness of celebrity online characters, and how online gamers with different playing motivations display different behaviours in their choice of online game characters. Results from the survey filled out by participants after the experiments show that the attractiveness of celebrity online characters is significantly higher than that of non-celebrity characters. Further, online game players with a social playing motivation tend to choose celebrities as their online game characters.     

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.     

Physiology-based personalization of persuasive technology: a user modeling perspective

Persuasive technology (PT) can assist in behavior change. PT systems often rely on user models, based on behavior and self-report data, to personalize their functionalities and thereby increase efficiency. This review paper shows how physiological measurements could be used to further improve user models for personalization of PT by means of bio-cybernetic loops and data-driven approaches. Furthermore, we outline the advantages of using physiological measures for personalization compared to self-report and behavior measurement. Additionally, we show how two types of physiological information—physiological states and physiological reactivity—can be relevant for PT adaptations. To illustrate this, we present a model with two types of physiology-based PT adaptations as part of a bio-cybernetic loop; state-based and reactivity-based. Next, we discuss the implications of physiology-aware PT for persuasive design and theory. And lastly, because of the potential impact of such systems, we also consider important ethical implications of physiology-aware PT.

     

Ambiguous Agents: The Influence of Consistency of an Artificial Agent’s Social Cues on Emotion Recognition,Recall, and Persuasiveness

This article explores the relation between consistency of social cues and persuasion by an artificial agent. Including (minimal) social cues in Persuasive Technology (PT) increases the probability that people attribute human-like characteristics to that technology, which in turn can make that technology more persuasive (see, e.g., Nass, Steuer, Tauber, & Reeder, 1993). PT in the social actor role can be equipped with a variety of social cues to create opportunities for applying social influence strategies (for an overview, see Fogg, 2003). However, multiple social cues may not always be perceived as being consistent, which could decrease their perceived human-likeness and their persuasiveness. In the current article, we investigate the relation between consistency of social cues and persuasion by an artificial agent. Findings of two studies show that consistency of social cues increases people’s recognition and recall of artificial agents’ emotional expressions, and make those agents more persuasive. These findings show the importance of the combined meaning of social cues in the design of persuasive artificial agents.     

Equilibrium Trajectories in Dynamical Bimatrix Games with Average Integral Payoff Functionals

This paper considers models of evolutionary non-zero-sum games on the infinite time interval. Methods of differential game theory are used for the analysis of game interactions between two groups of participants. We assume that participants in these groups are controlled by signals for the behavior change. The payoffs of coalitions are defined as average integral functionals on the infinite horizon. We pose the design problem of a dynamical Nash equilibrium for the evolutionary game under consideration. The ideas and approaches of non-zero-sum differential games are employed for the determination of the Nash equilibrium solutions. The results derived in this paper involve the dynamic constructions and methods of evolutionary games. Much attention is focused on the formation of the dynamical Nash equilibrium with players strategies that maximize the corresponding payoff functions and have the guaranteed properties according to the minimax approach. An application of the minimax approach for constructing optimal control strategies generates dynamical Nash equilibrium trajectories yielding better results in comparison to static solutions and evolutionary models with the replicator dynamics. Finally, we make a comparison of the dynamical Nash equilibrium trajectories for evolutionary games with the average integral payoff functionals and the trajectories for evolutionary games with the global terminal payoff functionals on the infinite horizon.     

The differences in motivations of online game players and offline game players: A combined analysis of three studies at higher education level

Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on how University students spend their leisure time. Due to their highly motivating properties computer games have come to the attention of educationalists who wish to exploit these highly desirable properties for educational purposes. Several studies have been performed looking at motivations for playing computer games in a general context and in a Higher Education (HE) context. These studies did not focus on the differences in motivations between online and offline game players. Equally the studies did not look at the differences in motivations of people who prefer single player games and people who prefer multiplayer games. If games-based learning is to become a recognised teaching approach then such motivations for playing computer games must be better understood. This paper presents the combined analysis of three studies at HE level, performed over a four year period from 2005 to 2009. The paper focuses on differences of motivations in relation to single player/multiplayer preference and online/offline game participation. The study found that challenge is the top ranking motivation and recognition is the lowest ranking motivation for playing computer games in general. Challenge is also the top ranking motivation for playing games in HE while fantasy and recognition are the lowest ranking motivations for playing games in HE. Multiplayer gamers derive more competition, cooperation, recognition, fantasy and curiosity from playing games and online gamers derive more challenge, cooperation, recognition and control from playing games. Multiplayer gamers and online gamers ranked competition, cooperation and recognition significantly more important for playing games in HE than single players and offline participants.     

Competitively versus cooperatively? An analysis of the effect of game play on levels of stress

Many gamers report that playing video games, including those with violent content, helps them to reduce stress. However, few studies have examined competitive and cooperative video game play as they relate to stress reduction. The current study employed a design to acutely stress 100 participants before assigning them randomly to play a mildly violent game either competitively or cooperatively with a female confederate. Results indicated stress levels declined over time at equal levels during both competitive and cooperative game play. Participants in the competitive condition held a slightly less positive impression of the confederate following game play, although players held a generally positive impression of the confederate overall.     

Adaptive persuasive messaging to increase service retention: using persuasion profiles to increase the effectiveness of email reminders

In this article, we describe the usage of persuasion profiles in a large scale, N = 1,129, field trial. Persuasive technologies—technologies intentionally designed to influence user behavior—are emergent and becoming more and more individualized and ubiquitous. Individual differences in people’s responses to often used persuasion principles—different psychological means by which to influence users—motivate personalization. We describe how, through identification, representation, and measurement, persuasive technologies can personalize their persuasive attempts. Next, we show that dynamically adapting a persuasive technology to the responses of its users increases the effectiveness of the system. Ubiquitous computing systems are, because of their ability to unobtrusively measure user behavior, very well suited for these types of applications.     

Motivational characteristics of Turkish MMORPG players

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) attract millions of online gamers all over the world. However, very few studies have addressed the nature of participants in these games through a robust theoretical background. Thus, the need for theory-based attempts to understand the characteristics of players in different contexts is urgent. The current study adapted a contemporary scale on gamer motivations with Turkish MMORPG members. Confirmatory factor analyses with 307 Turkish MMORPG players revealed that the scale worked effectively. Furthermore, the proposed factor structure and the structural equation model sheltering the interrelationships among the motivation components were supported with a theoretical background on the Self-determination Theory (SDT). It was observed that Turkish MMORPG players were mostly non-working and young males who demonstrated unique playing patterns. Their playing time was correlated with the level of education, body mass index and age. Advancement in the game, game mechanics and socializing were the leading motivations whereas teamwork has been given less importance. The study also revealed that the autonomy, competence and relatedness needs which are proposed by the SDT are not mutually exclusive components. Findings were discussed followed by implications and suggestions for further studies.     

Online game bot detection based on party-play log analysis

As online games become popular and the boundary between virtual and real economies blurs, cheating in games has proliferated in volume and method. In this paper, we propose a framework for user behavior analysis for bot detection in online games. Specifically, we focus on party play which reflects the social activities among gamers: in a Massively Multi-user Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), party play is a major activity that game bots exploit to keep their characters safe and facilitate the acquisition of cyber assets in a fashion very different from that of normal humans. Through a comprehensive statistical analysis of user behaviors in game activity logs, we establish threshold levels for the activities that allow us to identify game bots. Based on this, we also build a knowledge base of detection rules, which are generic. We apply our rule reasoner to AION, a popular online game serviced by NCsoft, Inc., a leading online game company based in Korea.     

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.