Social Network Games Uncovered: Motivations and Their Attitudinal and Behavioral Outcomes

Abstract

This study explores motivations for playing games on social network sites as well as attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of those motivations. A total of 324 college students in the United States participated in an online survey. Found were the six motivations for playing social network games (SNG): social interaction, self-presentation, fantasy/role playing, passing time/escapism, entertainment, and challenge/competition. Further, the findings demonstrated that different types of motivations influenced attitudes toward playing SNG and intentions to engage in different social network gaming activities differentially.

Introduction

Social network games (SNG), games that can be played with other people on social network sites (SNS),¹ are becoming increasingly popular. About 53 million people in the United States played SNG at least once a month in 2010, representing 42 percent of SNS users, and it is expected to grow to 68.7 million by 2012, likewise, 46 percent.² In May 2012, CityVille, one of the popular SNG, had about 40.9 million monthly active users, and other top 10 SNG such as Texas HoldEm Poker and FarmVille each over 16 million as such.³ Additionally, SNG are becoming lucrative. The revenue from SNG in the United States was $856 million in 2010 and is expected to reach $1.32 billion by 2012.² Moreover, it has been reported that compared to the demographic mix of the users of console games and multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), which skews toward teen and young adult males, the SNG population is more diverse both by gender and age.²

The exponential growth and the broad user base of SNG can be attributed to their characteristics. First, SNG, by nature, offer ample opportunities for players to share their gaming experiences and even to collaborate with their SNS friends. Second, SNG have the potential to go viral.^2,4,5 Specifically, automatic notifications of players' gaming activities in their friends' newsfeeds on SNS attracted many people to explore SNG in the first place.² Since SNG use SNS as a platform, they also allow players to easily invite their friends to the games.⁵ Third, like MMORPG, some SNG offer persistent game societies that exist even when players log off.^6,7 Such persistent aspect of SNG motivates players to return to the games regularly to find out what has been happening in the games⁶ and to build on their previous actions in the games. Fourth, many SNG are asynchronous, allowing players to interact with others outside the constraints of time.^1,2,4,8 Finally, unlike console games, most SNG are relatively simple and feature universal themes such as building cities and farming, attracting large audiences.²

Despite the growing popularity of SNG, little is known about its enthusiasm. Recently, Shin and Shin¹ identified perceived playfulness and security as important factors to predict individuals' attitudes toward and subsequently their intention to play SNG. To better understand SNG, we examine rigorously why people play SNG, and how different types of motivations influence their attitudes toward playing SNG and their intention to engage in various SNG activities.

Why do people play SNG?

Motivation generally refers to a force that drives people to take action.⁹ Motivation can vary not only in the level of motivation but also in the type.¹⁰ In consumer and media research, consumer motivations have been frequently studied, for being the foundation of understanding a new phenomenon.¹¹^(p473)

As playing entertainment games has become one of the favorite leisure activities, many researchers have examined why people play video games^12,13 or online games.^14–17 Most frequently referred motivations for playing electronic games include entertainment, competition, challenge, social interaction, fantasy/role-playing, escapism, and passing time.^12–17 Given that SNG are a newer form of entertainment games, it is plausible to conjecture that reasons of playing SNG may be similar. Specifically, players tend to play SNG to have fun. Also, they are likely to play them to compete with others, and to challenge themselves to move to a higher level or to master the game. They also allow players to create and try out new identities and to be absorbed in a fantasy world. For example, Mafia Wars allows players to become mafia and fight against other players. By winning fights, players can move to a higher level. Additionally, SNG allow players to interact with others. For example, FarmVille allows players to invite their SNS friends to be their neighbors and interact with them by visiting and helping each other's farms (e.g., fertilizing). Finally, playing SNG allows people to escape from their real-life problems, and to pass time when bored.

Moreover, SNG are one form of applications available on SNS and played with SNS friends. Motivations most commonly found in the literature on SNS and most relevant to the context of SNG include social interaction, entertainment, passing time, and self-presentation.^18–20 Interestingly, these motivations, except for self-presentation, are those also found in the electronic gaming studies. Self-presentation or impression management has been considered an important motive behind individuals' SNS usage.¹⁸ SNS provide people with plenty of opportunities to present themselves to their SNS friends and to manage the impressions their SNS friends form of them.¹⁹ Likewise, by playing SNG, players can also freely express their identities and manage their impressions on their SNS friends. For example, in FarmVille, players can present themselves as socially desirable, likable, or friendly through their customized avatar, by decorating their farms, and by helping their friends' farms.

Because of the paucity of research on motivations for playing SNG, we raise the following question:

RQ1: What drives people to play SNG?

Understanding motivations for playing SNG is valuable to researchers as well as SNG developers. Indeed, previous research has demonstrated that different types of motivations lead to different cognitive, affective, and behavioral consequences.²¹ Relevant to this study, motivations for playing electronic games or using SNS have been found to influence attitudes toward playing the games or using the SNS and the related behaviors.^{14,15,17,19,20} For example, in the context of gaming, Jansz and Tanis¹⁵ found that social, interest, enjoyment, and competition motives predicted time spent playing online first-person shooter games. With respect to SNS usage, Kim et al.²⁰ found that convenience, entertainment, and friendship motives predicted attitudes toward SNS positively, whereas social support and information motives did not.

Similarly, we expect that different types of motivations to play SNG will also affect attitudes toward and intention to engage in the gaming activities differentially. Players can perform several specific tasks when playing SNG such as inviting their SNS friends to play with them (e.g., adding friends to be neighbors in FarmVille), visiting their SNS friends' spaces in the games (e.g., visiting friends' café in Café World), sending gifts, which can be used in games, to SNS friends (e.g., sending a cow to neighbors in FarmVille), or purchasing virtual goods to be used in games. Purchases of virtual goods within SNG, such as flowers in FarmVille, deserve particular attention, given that virtual goods accounted for about 60 percent of revenues from SNG.² Many SNG use microtransactions as their business model, where games are free to play, but some virtual goods are available for purchase to be used in games.²²

Taken together, it would be worthwhile to understand more fully whether and how different types of motivations for playing SNG will predict attitudes toward playing games and intention to engage in various activities.

RQ2: Whether and how do different motivations for playing SNG influence attitudes toward playing SNG?

RQ3: Whether and how do different motivations for playing SNG affect intention to engage in various SNG activities?

Why do not people play SNG?

More than 70 percent of the Internet users have never played SNG yet.² Some may not play SNG because they are not aware of them. Many others, however, may intentionally decide not to play them for various reasons. Understanding why people do not play SNG will give SNG developers insights into how to attract nonplayers to explore SNG.

RQ4: Why do not people play SNG?

Methods

Participants and procedure

An online survey was conducted of a total of 324 college students at a large Midwestern university in the United States. A chance to win a gift card in a lottery was offered as an incentive. The survey consisted of two versions, one for SNG players and another for nonplayers. On the first page of the research Website, participants were asked if they had ever played SNG. Participants who answered “yes” were directed to the online questionnaire for SNG players and requested to indicate their motivations for, attitude toward, and intention for playing SNG, as well as demographic information. For those who answered “no” were directed to the questionnaire for nonplayers and requested to indicate why they did not play SNG.

Among all the participants, 66 percent (n=214) reported having played SNG before. Among the players, 57.5 percent were men, and their average age was 20.77 (standard deviation [SD]=2.15), ranging from 17 to 33. Similarly, 62.7 percent of the nonplayers were men, and the average age was 21.15 (SD=3.63), ranging from 18 to 53.

Measures

Motives for playing SNG

Critically reviewed were previous studies on motivations for playing games and using SNS to help identify types of motivations for playing SNG. Supplementarily, for better insights, a convenient sample of 35 young adults was asked, via Facebook, if and why they play SNG in an open-ended format. Based on the previous studies as well as the open-ended responses, eight types of motivations were identified: social interaction, entertainment, passing time, escapism, role-playing/fantasy, challenge, competition, and self-presentation. Measures were borrowed from previous studies.^{13,17,23–30} A total of 42 items, deemed most relevant, were used. Participants indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with each of the items, on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Attitude toward playing SNG

It was measured, on a 7-point scale, with five items, anchored with bad–good, negative–positive, unpleasant–pleasant, uninteresting–interesting, and unattractive–attractive.³¹

Intention to engage in SNG activities

Intention was measured by asking participants' intention to engage in each of the following five activities in the next 3 months: (a) playing SNG, (b) inviting SNS friends to play SNG, (c) visiting SNS friends' spaces in SNG, (d) sending gifts, which can be used in SNG, to SNS friends, and (e) purchasing virtual currencies or goods for games. Intention to engage in each SNG activity was measured with three items, on a 7-point scale, anchored with unlikely–likely, improbable–probable, and impossible–possible.³²

Multiple items for each construct were averaged for subsequent analyses. Means, standard deviations, and Chronbach's alphas for each construct are reported in Table 1.

Table 1.

Reliability, Means, Standard Deviation of Each Construct

Constructs	Reliability	Means	SD
Social interaction	0.930	1.619	1.049
Self-presentation	0.967	1.975	1.425
Fantasy/role playing	0.961	2.182	1.577
Passing time/escapism	0.911	4.575	1.642
Entertainment	0.929	4.013	1.667
Challenge/competition	0.851	3.112	1.686
Attitude	0.939	3.983	1.427
Intention to play	0.928	3.592	1.846
Intention to invite	0.914	2.330	1.606
Intention to visit	0.947	2.640	1.837
Intention to send gift	0.936	2.207	1.650
Intention to purchase	0.893	1.400	1.028

Reasons for not playing SNG

Participants who reported having never played SNG were asked to list up to three reasons why they had not played SNG in an open-ended format.

Results

Motives for playing SNG

To answer the RQ1, a two-stage principal components factor analysis (PCA) with Varimax rotation was conducted. The initial factor analysis revealed six factors. After eliminating six items with significant cross loadings, a second PCA was conducted on the remaining 36 items to refine the factor structure further. The second PCA revealed six factors with each eigenvalue above 1.0, accounting for 78.13 percent of the variance. Table 2 displays the final six-factor solution, including items, eigenvalues, and variance explained.

Table 2.

Social Gaming Motive Constructs and Factor Loadings

	1	2	3	4	5	6
To get support from others	0.81
To find people like me	0.80
To find something to talk about	0.77
To feel important	0.77
To feel like I belong to a group	0.77
To maintain a relationship I value	0.75
To find new people	0.73
Because I wonder what other people said	0.65
Because I want other players to perceive me as competent		0.82
Because I want other players to perceive me as socially desirable		0.81
Because I want other players to perceive me as likable		0.81
Because I want other players to perceive me as friendly		0.79
Because I want other players to perceive me as skilled		0.76
To make a good impression		0.72
To tell others a little bit about myself		0.62
Because playing it allows me to pretend I am someone/somewhere else			0.83
Because I enjoy the excitement of assuming an alter ego in this game			0.80
Because I enjoy trying out new roles and personalities with my character			0.79
Because I like to do something that I could not normally do in real life through this game			0.79
Because I enjoy being immersed in a fantasy world			0.69
Because I enjoy role-playing my character			0.67
Because playing it gives me something to occupy my time				0.83
When I have nothing better to do				0.81
When I am bored				0.80
Because playing it passes the time away				0.76
So I can get away from what I am doing				0.75
So I can forget about school, work or other things				0.72
Because playing it amuses me					0.82
Because playing it is enjoyable					0.81
Because playing it entertains me					0.79
Because playing it is exciting					0.75
Because playing it is thrilling					0.69
Because I enjoy competing with other players						0.68
To complete a level or win the game						0.66
Because I find it very rewarding to get to the next level						0.63
To prove to my friends that I am the best						0.58
Eigenvalue	16.21	5.64	1.89	1.70	1.46	1.24
Variance explained (percent)	45.03	15.66	5.24	4.71	4.05	3.45

1, social interaction; 2, self-presentation; 3, fantasy/role playing; 4, passing time/escapism; 5, entertainment; 6, challenge/competition.

The first factor, viz. social interaction, accounted for 45.03 percent of the variance and consisted of eight items. It represents a player's motive to get others' support and maintain one's relationship. Representing a motive to make a good impression on others, the second one, viz. self-presentation, comprised eight items and explained 15.66 percent of the variance. The remaining four factors refer to fantasy/role playing representing a motive to try out new identities and be absorbed in a fantasy world; passing time/escapism, a motive to pass time when bored and to escape from their real-life problems; entertainment, a motive to have entertaining gaming experiences; and challenge/competition, a motive to enjoy friendly competition with others and improve one's level in SNG.

Attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of motivations for playing SNG

RQ2 and RQ3 addressed the differential impacts of social network gaming motives on attitudes and behavioral intention. Six multiple regressions were conducted with attitude toward playing SNG and intention to engage in each of five SNG activities as an outcome variable for each multiple regression. Consequently, in all regression analyses, the six motivations were entered as predictor variables. Table 3 lists all standardized betas in multiple regression analyses.

Table 3.

Regressing Attitude Toward and Intention for Playing Social Games on Social Gaming Motives

	Attitude β	Play β	Invite β	Visit β	Gift β	Purchase β
Social interaction	−0.083	−0.007	0.035	0.083	0.069	0.119
Entertainment	0.437^***	0.291^**	0.150	0.182^*	0.030	0.093
Passing time/Escapism	0.181^*	0.185^*	0.141	0.082	0.096	0.043
Fantasy/role playing	−0.113	−0.152	−0.051	−0.146	−0.079	−0.107
Challenge/competition	−0.034	0.008	0.026	0.204^*	0.189^*	−0.090
Self-presentation	0.309^***	0.165	0.159	0.098	0.142	0.311^**
R ²	0.406^***	0.211^***	0.133^***	0.180^***	0.132^***	0.113^***

All betas are standardized.

p<0.05, ^**p<0.01, ^***p<0.001.

With regard to attitude toward playing SNG, the regression model was significant (p<0.001) and explained 40.6 percent of the variance. Entertainment (β=0.437), passing time/escapism (β=0.181), and self-presentation (β=0.309) predicted the attitude toward playing SNG positively. Likewise, this study demonstrated that each of the five remaining regression models to predict intention to engage in each of five SNG activities was significant (p<0.001) and explained 21 percent (playing games), 13 percent (inviting friends to play games), 18 percent (visiting friends' spaces in games), 13 percent (sending friends gifts), and 11 percent (purchasing virtual goods) of the variance, respectively.

Among the six motives, entertainment (β=0.291) and passing time/escapism (β=0.185) each had a positive impact on intention to play SNG. None of the motives predicted intention to invite friends to play SNG. Entertainment (β=0.182) and challenge/competition (β=0.204) motives were significant predictors of intention to visit friends' spaces in SNG. Only challenge/competition motive (β=0.189) influenced intention to send gifts for games to friends positively. And then, on intention to purchase virtual goods only self-presentation (β=0.311) motive had a positive effect.

Reasons for not playing SNG

In quest of the reasons for not playing SNG, a total of 127 responses were obtained. All of the responses were critically reviewed verbatim; and 12 types of main themes were abstracted and identified. Subsequently, two coders independently labeled each response into one of the 12 types. Cohen's Kappa was employed to check intercoder reliability³³ on the entire sample of the responses, which was found to be 0.90. Disagreements were resolved by discussion between the coders.

The most frequently mentioned reason of not playing SNG was being annoyed by too many notifications about SNG, comprising 22.8 percent of the responses. Also raised were poor game quality and waste of time, representing 15.7 percent and 15 percent of the responses, respectively. Others include addictive nature of SNG and no interest in SNG. Table 4 provides a summary of reasons for not playing SNG.

Table 4.

Reasons for Not Playing Social Games

Reasons for not playing social games	N	Percent
Annoyed by too many notifications	29	22.8
Poor game quality	20	15.7
Waste of time	19	15
Addictive	14	11
No interest in social games	9	7.1
Don't want others to know what I did in social games	8	6.3
No reward for playing	4	3.1
Primary motive of using SNSs: social networking	2	1.6
Prefer other types of games (e.g., console games)	2	1.6
Don't play any games	2	1.6
Social games are for younger people	2	1.6
Other	17	13.4

SNS, social network sites.

Discussion and Conclusions

This study identified the following six motivations for playing SNG: social interaction, self-presentation, fantasy/role playing, passing time/escapism, entertainment, and challenge/competition. It is not surprising that most of the motives found in this study are aligned with the motives found for other types of games in the gaming literature. It is noteworthy that, however, self-presentation was found to be a distinct motivation for playing SNG. Although self-presentation has not been identified as a motivation in the gaming literature, it has been frequently considered an important motive for using SNS. This finding suggests that people play SNG to express themselves and make good impressions on other people.

Consistent with previous studies examining other types of games,¹⁴ this study found that the more participants played SNG for fun and to escape from their everyday mundane existence, the more positive their attitudes toward playing SNG were and the greater their intentions to play SNG were. In addition, challenge/competition motive was found to influence participants' intentions to visit friends' spaces in SNG and their intentions to send gifts to their friends positively. The positive impacts of challenge/competition motive make sense, because by visiting friends' spaces in SNG, helping friends out, and sending gifts, players can earn points (e.g., reputation points in CityVille or paw points in Pet Society), which subsequently help them move to a higher level. Further, considering that virtual goods are an important source of revenue, understanding why people purchase virtual goods is important for SNG developers. Consistent with previous consumer research,³⁴ this study found that the more participants were motivated to make good impressions on others by playing SNG, the greater their intentions to purchase virtual goods were.

Surprisingly, none of the identified motivations predicted intentions to invite friends to play SNG with them. Inviting friends to SNG is an effective way to help the games go viral.⁵ This recruitment method is more important than ever before, because in September 2010, Facebook started to limit the automatic notifications of players' SNG activities only to Facebook users who had already installed the game in question.² Future research should investigate factors that help predict players' intention to invite friends to SNG.

Finally, this study found that participants did not play SNG, because they were annoyed by too many notifications of their friends' SNG activities on SNS. This finding is interesting in that those same automatic notifications attracted many SNS users to explore SNG in the first place.² Another major reason is their perception of poor quality of SNG. SNG are simple and easy to play, thus attracting a wide range of groups of people. However, this very attribute may keep hardcore gamers from playing SNG.

Taken together, this study contributes to our understanding of the SNG phenomenon and highlights the importance of examining the effects of motivations on each of various SNG activities separately. Moreover, this study provides SNG developers with valuable insights. It is essential for the developers to take into consideration players' specific needs when designing specific game elements.

Despite these contributions, limitations also exist. Although the list of motivations identified in this study is comprehensive, it may not be exhaustive. Additionally, college students in their 20s are active players of SNG, but may not be representative of the SNG population. For example, the PopCap Games report³⁵ indicated that 86 percent of U.S. SNG players in 2010 were above 30. Future research needs to explore if there are other motivations for playing SNG and replicate the findings of this study using more representative samples.

Footnotes

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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