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Emerging factors affecting the continuance of online gaming: the roles of bridging and bonding social factors

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Abstract

The forecasted growth of the online gaming industry in Korea is expected to reach over 11.8 trillion Korean won (KRW) by 2014. Nearly 60 % of domestic residents play online games. Online games are becoming an integral part of life and we need different perspectives to look into this subject rather than focus on the negatives such as online gaming addiction. In addition, although achievement motivation for online games has been emphasized in earlier research, communicating and socializing with other players is commonplace in today’s online gaming world and socialization motivation is emerging as an important factor influencing online gamers. With stress on the communication and socialization aspects of online gaming, we need different perspectives from those of the past to investigate online gaming and draw on social capital theory. By socially interacting with other gamers, the online gamer not only builds new relationships (bridging social capital), but he/she also strengthens existing relationships (bonding social capital). However, previous research has concentrated only on one of these types of user interactions, and has not analyzed interactions for both bridging and bonding social capital at the same time. Therefore, this study explores both bridging and bonding social capital in online gaming with a neutral dependent construct, the continuance of online gaming, and provides new insights and implications for future research and the industry.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Konkuk University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Business Administration and Economics, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwondaero Chungju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do, 380-701, Republic of Korea

    Yong-Young Kim

  2. Department of Computer Engineering, Chungbuk National University, 52 Naesudong-ro, Heungdeok-gu, Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, 361-763, Republic of Korea

    Mi-Hye Kim

  3. Department of E-Business, Dongyang Mirae University, 445 Gyeonginro, Guro-gu, Seoul, 152-714, Republic of Korea

    Sangjo Oh

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  1. Yong-Young Kim
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Correspondence to Mi-Hye Kim.

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Kim, YY., Kim, MH. & Oh, S. Emerging factors affecting the continuance of online gaming: the roles of bridging and bonding social factors. Cluster Comput 17, 849–859 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-013-0316-1

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