Research on the Relationship Between Online Gamer Identity and Game Loyalty

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210121.032How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Social identity, Social presence, Social capital, Online game

Abstract

With the continuous development of internet and communication technology, human have also increasingly expanded social interactions. The proportion of traditional face-to-face communication has decreased in daily life, while conveying information through media becomes the principal part. CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) is not only the center of our life,but also the hotspot attracting more and more attention among specialists and scholars. Online game, one of the forms of CMC, has been attached increasing importance by scholars as a result of its constant development. Based on previous researches and from perspectives of social identity, social presence and social capital theory, this thesis studies various indexes of online game players through on-line and off-line questionnaires, including social network, sense of community, mutual dependence, converted capital and game identity. Based on the survey, this thesis will answer 3 key questions, including the relationship between online gamer identity and game loyalty, different online game behaviors with different gamer identity and indexes influencing online gamer identity and game loyalty. According to data analysis results, gamer identity has significant influence on the persistent behavior of playing on-line games. Besides, among those indexes which can affect the persistent behavior of playing on-line games, gamer identity is obviously relevant to indexes found in previous researches. In general, play frequency, network convergence and relational switching costs are important indexes which can influence on-line gamer identity and game loyalty. Through investigations on game loyalty from the perspective of social identity theory, this thesis not only enriches preceding researches of different disciplines within this field, such as psychology, sociology and communications, but also provides a new evidence for future researches on the online behaviors of online game players.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Guo Zhao
AU  - Baolei Yang
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/01/23
TI  - Research on the Relationship Between Online Gamer Identity and Game Loyalty
BT  - Proceedings of the 6th Annual International Conference on Social Science and Contemporary Humanity Development (SSCHD 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 153
EP  - 158
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210121.032
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210121.032
ID  - Zhao2021
ER  -