Exploring the Antecedents of Gamer Loyalty in Online Games: Social and Communication Perspectives

Background: Online gaming is emerging as a new entertainment industry that creates new options for creative business models and diversified marketing channels. Recent studies often focus on how the interaction among game users influences their loyalty, but the influences of communication experience, social goals and communication style have been rarely discussed. Research objectivity: Overall, the present research project aims to explore the effects of communication experience, social goals, and communication style on user loyalty in online games. The objectivity of the first-year project is: exploring how social network construction and structure affect communication experience and user loyalty. The objectivity of the second-year project is: investigating whether and how social goals of online gaming players influence communication experience and user loyalty. The objectivity of the third-year project is: studying the influence of communication style on communication experience and user loyalty. Research method: Cross-sectional designs will be adopted in each year and data will be collected through questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling will be used as the primary statistical analysis techniques. Theoretical implications: The present project uniquely explores the importance of four dimensions (i.e., social network construction and structure, social goals, communication style and social communication experience) and their impacts on user loyalty, which is expected to add value to existing theories in the fields of information systems and human communication. Practical implications: With new understandings on how social factors (i.e., network structure and communication) influence user loyalty, the present project is expected to facilitate managerial decision making with regard to designing user experience and promoting user loyalty for gaining competitive advantage. Expected results and contributions: the present research project is expected to create new knowledge to existing theories and contribute practical suggestions to managerial decision making. We hope the present project can contribute with academic publications to enhance the visibility of Taiwanese academics in international journals

Project ID:PB10607-0757
External Project ID:MOST106-2410-H182-006