Video Games:Youngsters Motivation and Time Spent In GameReport

CO

NT

EN

T ESSENTIAL FACTS 1

GAME TIMELINE 2

BEHIND THE GENRES 3

WHY ARE WE PLAYING GAMES 4

GAME ATHMOSPHERE 5

CURRENT STUDY 6

TIME SPENT IN VIDEO GAMES 8

MOTIVATION AND GAME ENGAGEMENT 9

I Video games?

The current study aims to identify the motivation that drives the Romanian

youngsters and young adults in playing video games and to analyze which

motivation, if any, causes these young people to be more engaged in playing.

The sample is composed of people who completed the online questionnaire. To

test our hypothesis, we have analyzed a sample of 140 respondents, age varying

between 13 and 42 years old. The methodology features the use of „Game Play

Motivations” (12-item version) and „Pathological Video-Game Use” (11 items)

instruments. The results are confirming our suspicions, as there is at least a

relation between social derived motivation and the time a gamer spends in

game.

ABSTRACT

Population?

More than 150

million Americans

play video games.

Time?

60 percent of

Americans play

video games

daily.

Age?

The average gamer

is 34 years old and

72 percent are age

18 or older.

Gender?

45% of US

gamers are

women.

ESSENTIAL FACTS

Data provided by: Entertainment Software Association 1

The history of home video games is a

history of constant change and innovation,

battles over standards, booms and busts

(Williams, 2009, p. 42). Curiously, the first

video game was developed in 1958 in a lab

by a government nuclear research scientist

named Wally Higginbotham who, tired of

seeing bored visitors at his lab’s open

house, decided to create a game of tennis

on an oscilloscope screen (Herman 1997

apud. Williams, 2009, p. 42).

This is a sample text.

Insert your desired text here.

Lorem Ipsum

GAME TIMELINE

1958

First video

game

1999

2010

From 1998 to 2001, the video game

industry became the fastest growing

segment of the entertainment

industry with a growth rate of 15 to

25 per cent, employing over 200,000

people (Williams, 2009, p.41).

Domestic revenues of

$7.4

billion

Since its launch in 2004, the MMORPG

WoW grew rapidly, reaching 12 million each

paying 10$ monthly (Forbes, 2010).

World of Warcraft 12

million subscribers

Dmitri Williams (2009), Structure and Competition in the U.S.

Home Video Game Industry

An single player game wins the game

of the year award in an “era of online

games”.

2019

The Witcher 3 the Game

Award of the year 2015

02One game, Fortnite,

reach 250 million

players 2018

This is a sample text.

Insert your desired text here.

Lorem Ipsum

2017Consumer spend on the

video games industry

$36 BILLION

GAME

GENRESSimulation

Strategy

Puzzle

Fantasy/role

playing

Sports

Action /

adventure

Shooter

Racing

/speed

Classic

board

games

Fighter

Quiz/

trivia

Card/diceArcade

(Lucas & Sherry, 2004, p. 512).2

In World of Warcraft, 12 million players regularly log on to

customize their fantasy personae (characters), explore complex

and ever-changing vistas (pleasing scenes), and collaboratively

battle human and computer opponents. In Starcraft 2, millions

worldwide play a complex chess-like strategy game that

demands perpetual multitasking between procuring resources,

amassing an army, and penetrating opponents’ defenses. In The

Sims 3, players cultivate a virtual existence where their

character(s) socialize, learn new skills, work steady jobs, and

develop complex relationships. In Halo 4, players take on the

first-person perspective of a highly equipped supersoldier,

violently killing alien races over the course of a narrative and,

when online, competing and cooperating with peers. In FIFA 13,

players take control of their favorite soccer teams, competing in

realistic simulations against computer- or human-controlled

teams. Finally, in Minecraft, millions of players use Lego-like

elements to construct their own unique structures and

mechanisms, sharing their creations with others in immense

virtual worlds.

Garnic, Lobel și Rutger (2014, p.68), describe 2011’s

most popular games as follows:

BEHIND THE GENRES

Although most individual games

fit comfortably in one category

or another, some are difficult to

pigeonhole and others occupy

more than one category. For

example, simulation games,

which attempt to mimic complex

real-life activities like planning a

city, running a corporation, or

governing a country, usually

have role-playing, puzzle, and

strategy elements.

Role-playing

GENRES

PUZZLE

Strategy

Simulation

History

Game example: Mount and Blade

Mount and Blade genres

3

THE WORLD THROUGH

THE EYES OF AN

ANTRHROPOLOGIST

Based on a long line of fantasy themes derived from

a variety of sources, including Lord of the Rings and

its predecessors, World of Warcraft is staged in a

medieval setting (…) Players battle monsters, amass

treasure, conduct business at an auction house,

practice crafts such as alchemy and blacksmithing,

and seek to improve their characters through the

acquisition of ever better weapons and armor.

Players start at level 1 and can advance to level 80,

in a process known as “leveling,” by slaying

monsters and completing quests (minigames) that

award “experience points.” The character is seen in

the third person, usually from behind

(Bonnie A. Nardi, 2010, p.12)

4

GAME

ATHMOSPHERE

WoW is a game of movement. The game

geography is huge. Characters travel on foot or by

beast, boat, or air through fields, farms, forests,

jungles, deserts, mountains, seas, and other

distinctive scenery for which Blizzard artists have

won many awards. Players quest to find and slay

hundreds of different types of creatures from the

game’s “bestiary”—creatures dwelling throughout

the varied landscapes of the world.

The construction of the world has strong appeal to the modern consciousness—everything is human

scale. No building is more than a few stories high (Some areas are reached by elevator but are only one

or two levels once one arrives.) The objects players wear, wield, win, buy, and sell, including weapons,

vials of magical potions, fishing poles, armor, crafting implements such as mining picks, and resources

like herbs, cloth, and precious stones, are easily handled by the (virtual) human hand.

(Bonnie A. Nardi, 2010, p.12)

Bonnie’s Night Elf Priest

YEE MOTIVATION SCALE EXPLAINED

Advancement

Progress, Power,

Accumulation, Status

Mechanics

Numbers, Optimization,

Templating, Analysis

Competition

Challenging Others,

Provocation, Domination

Socializing

Casual Chat, Helping Others,

Making Friends

Relationship

Personal, Self-Disclosure,

Find and Give Support

Teamwork

Collaboration, Groups,

Group Achievements

Discovery

Exploration, Lore,

Finding Hidden Things

Role-Playing

Story Line, Character History,

Roles, Fantasy

Customization

Appearances, Accessories,

Style, Color Schemes

Escapism

Relax, Escape from RL,

Avoid RL Problems

Achievement Social Immersion

5

33

96

110

50

100

150

<18 18-28 > 28

Age categoriesThe age of respondents

varies between 13 (1)

and 42 (1) years old.

The vast majority of the

sample is composed of

youngsters as the

mean age is 22 years

old.

31%

69%

The total number of respondents analyzed

for the present study reaches 140 people.

Among our sample, the number of boys

(68,6%) is much higher than girls (31,4%),

which can give us indications that, in

Romania, gender differences remain

pronounced for gamers. Even though, the

girls percent has increased as more

respondents have completed the

questionnaire, it is still well below the portion

found in other countries’ rapports.

SAMPLE

DEMOGRAPHIC

6

Only 4 respondents in the entire sample do

not have a fulltime occupation at the

moment. This data contradicts the stereotype

that video game players would be people

without occupation.

QUESTIONAIRE

COVERAGE

As you can see (in the graphic),

most respondents are from the

counties: Cluj and Brasov, as well

as from the capital, Bucharest.

34

55

32

4

1

14

0 20 40 60 80

Highschool

Higher Education

Employed

N/A

Occupation

No other full time activity School and Work

PLATFORM

POPULARITY

86

66

36

8 7 13

9

6

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

PersonalComputer

(PC)

LaptopDevice

PlayStationConsole

XboxConsole

NintendoConsole

MobileDevice

Individual Shared (with others)

7

122 2

1

2

2

Brașov

Bucharest

Cluj

4

1

1

1

2

2

3

2

6

5

1

2

41

2 121

38

14

6

TIME SPENT IN

VIDEO GAMES

61%23,60%

7,90%

7,10%

Once or twice a

month

Once or twice per

week

Daily

The large number of people who

say they play every day is likely to

be caused by our data collection

method (choosing only sites and

groups dedicated to gamers).

Rarely, once

every two

months or

more

6%

94%

Pathological Video-

Game Use

Normal Use

We have introduced the

”Pathological Video-Game Use”

in our questionnaire, an

instrument made by Douglas

Gentile (2009), a highly tested

and probed questionnaire

which has proven its validity in

many other studies.

Even if our sample was mainly recruited from the online gaming

communities, as such we have expected a higher risk of

problematic use, we are pleasantly surprised that only 5,7% of

the respondents present so called „pathological use” (which can

be translated as video game addiction).

VIDEO GAMES

ADDICTION?

16 36,4% 70 72,9%

12 27,3% 21 21,9%

7 15,9% 4 4,2%

9 20,5% 1 1,0%

8

MOTIVATION AND GAME

ENGAGEMENT

As expected, motivation that drives us in playing video games affects the way we

interact with these games. From the time we spent in game through the dedication

we offer to them. We came to this realization based on a statistic analysis (“Bivariate

Correlations”) that follows a correlation between the 3 motivations and the results

from the "Pathological Video-Game Use” instrument, this being one of the main

reasons why we chose to apply the last mentioned instrument. As video game

addiction is not related to the time gamers spent in games, the instrument follows

the way a game affects our life (from family and friends’ aspects to our dedication to

the game, as a person is considered addicted only if the games affect aspects of his

personal life).

Thus, to conduct our correlation analysis, we have made a

sum of the scores obtained by respondents on the

questions from the addiction instrument, but we did not

future transform all this scores in a specific number that

reflects addiction or non-addiction as we have done before

(1-addicted, 0-non addicted). Not being interested in

knowing who is or is not addicted, we simply leave the

scores as they were, as the scores have much greater

importance for identifying a possible correlation. Our

strategy has proven to be useful, as the results show that,

indeed, motivation is related to the way we interact with

the game and how we balance the in game world and the

real word. We know from the results of the addiction tests

that most of the players have managed to balance this two

worlds without ignoring their real life responsibilities.

These results can be consulted in the table where it can be

seen that our data is backed up by strong statistical

significance (meaning that sig. is below 0.05) on all

motivations.

Achievement 0,012*

Social 0,000**

Immersion 0,005**

Sum from "Pathological Video-Game Use”

Bivariate

Correlations

* Strong statistical significance (p <0.05) ** very strong statistical significance

(p <0.01)

9

Mo

tivati

on

s

In the above paragraph we explain that our significance score (last column sig.) is above 0.05 (a score that is

below 0.05 is desired in scientific papers, reaching it practically means that the author is right 95 of 100

times, but that is not the case here). As we do not have p = <0.05, our data is not that exact so we can be

quite wrong (for that reason we chose to say that there is a “possible relation”). We have reached a "possible

relationship" because in case of the statistical test presented, we can also consult the F rates, if this rate is

higher it could mean that there is a correlation (even if it is not yet significant) and so we have to collect

more data, as a large number of respondents can increase the F, and so the results are more likely to

become significant.

ARE THERE DIFFERENCES BASE ON

SPECIFIC MOTIVATIOS?

Finally, we wanted to see if any of the

three motivations is more influential

than the other. For this purpose, we

analyzed if there is a relation between

the respondents motivation and

pathological results (more detailed , we

have done a ONE WAY ANOVA statistic

analysis among Yee’s 3 Motivations from

“Game Play Motivations” instrument and

the data from "Pathological Video-Game

Use”).

F Sig.

Achievement 1,713 .193

Social 2,843 .094

Immersion ,003 .960

ONEWAY ANOVA

The results are presented in the table above. As you can see, we obtained weak statistical

significance on the Social motivation where we have a sig. score below 1.0 (still above the required

0.5 for statistical significance but enough to suspect that there is some correlation).

It is important to note that we have no way of knowing in which “direction” these relations affect

the user, so it can also mean a positive influence, as social motivation can reduce pathological use.

This data surprised us, as we expected different results based on our findings from the preliminary

data analysis conducted on the first 77 respondents, where we found a higher F for the

Achievement motivation and no sign of possible correlation on Social. According to the initial

findings, we have continued the data collection procedure expecting to find significance for the

Achievement motivation.

The present analysis proves that our decision was correct, even though we did not find any strong

statistical significance, and contrary to our expectations the F of Achievement has slightly

decreased, so our expectation in this regard are unsustain by data .

Yet, we have obtained weak statistical significance for Social motivation. Thus, we can suspect that

there is a correlation between social derived motivation and game engagement.

10

Finally, in terms of engagement and motivation, we can conclude that there is a correlation

between the motivations and video game engagement, this data being backed up by strong

statistic significance. We also identified two possible correlations, on a different statistic test,

suggesting that two motivation may have some correlation with pathologic use, these being

Achievement motivation and Social motivation. the latter have stronger statistical significance

than the other. We also consider the data sufficient for the purpose of the present paper, as

we can probe that the motivation driving a person to playing video games also affects the

dedication to those games. Another potential strong point of our work is related to the data

on pathological use. Even with a small sample, we can say that the number of those

dependent on video games is at a level similar or even lower compared with other Western

states.

CONCLUSIONS

11

Hey, my name is Cosmin, I am currently following a masters degree

at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, part of Babeș-Bolyai

University form Cluj-Napoca. I’m interested in gaming studies,

alternative music studies and subcultural studies. Because of my

preferences for these domains I often say that: If something is

under-researched or the topic is considered unorthodox here in

Romania, I will most likely be interested in that aspect and I will be

open to research it myself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The present paper is part of a bigger project named

“RomaniaGamingStudies”, where I put all my heart in. It was made

with the main goal of bringing gaming studies to the mainstream

here in Romania. To do so, I am interested in continuing my

education, being mainly interested in a PhD in which I want to

continue the current project related to video games

Lastly, I want to personally show my gratitude to all the participants that completed the online

questionnaire for the present study! All of you helped me enormously and because of you I

obtained incredible data that really motivated me to consider continuing my study and proving

that many of the stereotypes that we often here from other people about video games might be

quite wrong.

The data collection stage is completed, still more data could be useful

for future projects, so, if you like what we are doing, please consider

filling (if u did not already do so) and distributing the questionnaire to

other players (which can be found on the page:

fb.com/RoGamingStudies).

Thank you very much to

all the participants and to the readers

The present study did not receive any sponsorship/grants and we are not interested in

collaborations that want to use the data for commercial purposes.

The only affiliation of the project is with Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babeș-Bolyai

University (UBB), Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

For any questions or scientific partnerships, please contact us using one of the contact listed on

the cover.

Contact information:

Author mail: Cosmin.gh@outlook.com

Project mail: RomaniaGamingStudies@outlook.com

Facebook: fb.com/RoGamingStudies