What makes good games go viral? The role of technology use,efficacy, emotion and enjoyment in players’ decision to share a prosocial digital game

Serious digital games may be an effective tool for prosocial message dissemination because they offer technology and experiences that encourage players to share them with others, and spread virally. But little is known about the factors that predict players’ willingness to share games with others in their social network. This panel study explores how several factors, including sharing technology use, emotional responses, and game enjoyment, contribute to players’ decision to share the game Darfur is Dying, with others. College students played the game and completed questionnaires that assessed whether they had shared the games at two different time points: during game play and after game play. Positive emotions predicted sharing while students played the game, but negative emotions predicted whether the game was shared after initial game play. Game enjoyment predicted players’ intentions to share the game, but it did not predict actual sharing behavior. Neither players’ general use of sharing technologies nor their satisfaction related to sharing digital content predicted sharing intentions or behavior. These findings have implications for the study of viral social marketing campaigns, and serious game design and theory.