Experiential Motives for Playing Online Games

Online games represent a burgeoning market sector of increasing economic importance. The distinctive entertainment-oriented features of such games provide various experiential values for users. However, most previous studies have focused on the utilitarian perspectives of the technology. The affective motivational aspects of entertainment technologies have been relatively neglected. The present study therefore identifies five experiential motives from studies of flow and shopping experiences such as concentration, perceived enjoyment, escape, epistemic curiosity, and social affiliation, and postulates that these motives influence customer’s engagement with online games, and engagement in turn affects customer usage of online games. The model is tested using data gathered from 374 current online game users. Structural equation modeling confirms that four of five experiential motives with the exception of enjoyment have positive effects on customers’ engagement, which subsequently affects online game usage.