Managing gamer relationships to enhance online gamer loyalty: The perspectives of social capital theory and self-perception theory

Online games are a popular communication media, yet how the relationship between online gamers and the game impacts gamer loyalty is still a fertile area for exploration. Hence, the objective of this study was to examine how relationship characteristics—length (duration), depth (increased usage), and breadth (cross-buying)—impact online gamer loyalty, and the role of relational switching costs and gaming habits (i.e., natural and automatic gaming behavior) in such impacts. The social capital theory and the self-perception theory were used to elucidate the underlying mechanism. This study collected responses from 5159 online gamers and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling methods. The analytical results indicate that relationship characteristics are positively related to relational switching cost and gaming habit, which are further related to online gamer loyalty. This study is one of the first examining how gamer-game relationships can contribute to gamer-gamer relationships (in terms of relational switching cost) and subsequently gamer loyalty. The findings provide the insight that developing relationships between gamers should fuel their continued play via two interwoven routes.