Young Gamers: Their Motivation Behind the Play, Involvement and Time Spent In-Video Games

This article examines the relevance of the time variable in identifying pathological users and the relation between motivation for playing video games and users’ engagement with the game. By combining conclusions from studies that analyze video games from motivational and problematic usage perspectives, we assumed that the two standpoints could be interconnected. Thus, this study starts from two assumption. First, time variable cannot predict pathological use and, second, motivation for playing a game can influence the decision of a user to continue playing, but also their commitment in the game. To test our hypothesis, we selected one instrument from each approach, respectively an instrument that addresses the motivation for playing a game and one that analyses the problematic use of games, called pathological usage. The final instrument composed of the two distinct tools was applied as an online questionnaire on a sample of 140 young people. Based on statistical analyses that confront possible links between results, but also on small changes made to the calculation procedure of the second instrument, ("video game pathological use") we were able to obtain results that seem to confirm our suspicions. We reason that time variable analyzed by itself does not appear to be sufficient to predict pathological use and we found a possible correlation between motivation and in-game involvement. That, in our study, represents the influence games have on players and if games affect aspects such as family life or even the decision of a user on taking immoral actions in the name of video games (e.g. stealing a game).


Keywords: video games; game involvement; motivation; youngsters,internet gaming addiction