The role of users’ motivations in generating social capital building and subjective well-being: The case of social network games
Introduction
The technology research firm Gartner reports that the global social gaming population includes at least 750 million players and is expected to double to 1.5 billion players by 2015 — a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent (GamblingData, 2012). Social network games (hereafter SNGs) have exploded in popularity on the online social media scene in a very short time (Casual Games Association, 2012). The explosive growth in popularity of social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace and Facebook serves to highlight the value of rich social context in mediated environments (Kirman, 2010). SNGs represent a new media channel that amplifies social interaction between online users (Wohn, Lee, Sung, & Bjornrud, 2010). SNGs combine the entertainment function of existing mobile games and SNSs by connecting and stimulating interaction among users. This new media platform has opened the door to an era of SNG use that encompasses all socioeconomic classes (Yook & Ko, 2012). Marketers interested in leveraging these rapidly growing industries to attract customers seek to understand what motivates users in order to craft effective messages.
Although there is a rich and rapidly growing body of literature on game players’ characteristics and motivations (Caplan et al., 2009, Dunne et al., 2010, Huffaker et al., 2009, Wohn et al., 2010, Zhong, 2011), there has been very little research that focuses on the role of social capital as a moderating variable for subjective well-being in this environment. Building on a wide range of studies in the literature, this study builds a theoretical model to explain how factors that motivate individual SNG players reinforce their subjective well-being and also how social capital moderates the effects of these motivation factors on subjective well-being.
Section snippets
The social network games environment
SNGs operate on a small scale and allow players to enjoy gaming with close friends (Casual Games Association, 2012). Wohn, Lampe, Wash, Ellison, and Vitak (2011) defined SNGs as game applications made available through SNSs, where users play games with members of their social networks, as articulated on the sites (p.3). They pointed out that SNGs often take advantage of the social features of SNSs, including access to a list of Facebook Friends. Players using SNGs can create contact lists for
SNG motivations, social capital as a moderating variable and subjective well-being
Social capital theory purports to explain the formation and effects of social networks on human activity at both the individual and social levels (Putnam, 1993, Putnam, 2000; Helliwell & Putnam, 2005). Many researchers use the concept of social capital to explain how socially mediated resources are generated and distributed as well as how people obtain benefits from social networks, focusing on the role of social capital as an influence not only on the development of human capital but also on
SNG selection
This study’s sample was drawn from people who play the SNG Anipang in Korea. The number of Anipang users in Korea exceeds 20 million. The number of users who play Anipang at least once a day is 10 million (Anipang’s developer Sundaytoz, 2012). Anipang, is a simple but fast-paced puzzle game in which users, by swiping the screen, attempt to line up three or more identical animals as quickly as possible. When identical animals are aligned in a row, they are wiped off the screen, and the players
Measurement assessment and validation
Although the measurement tools used in the study and based on the literature review are related to SNGs, it is important to test them for reliability and validity. For this purpose a multi-method approach to confirming the reliability and validity of the constructs was applied (McMillan and Hwang, 2002, Sohn and Choi, 2013).
The study first performed principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation on the initial items, employing a factor weight of 0.50 as the minimum cutoff value. It
Discussion
This study investigated relationships between several factors associated with SNG playing, in particular between motivations to play SNGs and subjective well-being, as well as the moderating effects of social capital on those relationships. The study found that SNG playing is positively related to subjective well-being, with escapism serving as a motivating factor with a stronger effect on subjective well-being than other factors. SNG players are more likely to seek an escape from reality, fun,
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Kyonggi University Research Grant 2012.
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