Underlying Factors of Problematic Online Gaming Behavior: Age, Intensity, and Genre

Abstract

Modern games offer rich user experiences through the inclusion of multimedia, increased mobilecapabilities, high fidelity interfaces, and increased accessibility. Since games are integrated into a widevariety of environments, their effects on people’s lives may exhibit a myriad of difference and may sometimeslead to problems that project into real life. In this study, we attempted to understand the problematic onlinegame use of a group of gamers by examining a series of psychological, physical, and demographical factors.We reached the participants through the help of a fan page on a popular social networking site, surveyingthem online and conducting interviews with volunteers. The results showed that age, game genre, andexcessive playing had significant effects on problematic online game usage. Among all age categories,elementary school aged gamers reported higher frequencies of losing self-control while playing. Among allgenres, gamers who prefer Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games were found to experience moreproblems related to euphoria and conflict. On the other hand, the gamers in this study were aware of thefact that they spent excessive amounts of time playing games as well as the negative effects that playing toomuch had on their real lives. These excessive gamers also reported conflicts, failure to control themselves,and health related problems.