Impact of online gamers' conscientiousness on team function engagement and loyalty

Online game research has explained the sources of gamer loyalty, but has not discussed the role of gaming team competition, i.e., who would engage in gaming team functions and what gaming team functions would foster members' loyalty. A lack of answers to these member-retaining questions keeps game providers in the dark about making game design decisions to retain gaming team members, threatening their survival. To address the questions, we conduct this study on online games that are typical in the gaming team context. We create a new typology of gaming team functions comprising two dimensions: (1) defensive vs. offensive and (2) agile vs. structured, and examine how the six conscientiousness facets lead online gamers to engage in gaming team functions, fostering online gamer loyalty. We analyze 703 responses from gamers of the popular online game (League of Legends). Interestingly, half of the facets motivate gamers' decisions to engage in defensive functions, while the other half motivate them to engage in offensive functions. Moreover, not all gaming team functions fuel loyalty. Pragmatically, our findings provide insights for game system providers to make decisions on game design to sustain members' loyalty. Academically, our study extends online game research to understand who engage in what gaming team functions and how to build gamer loyalty.