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Leveraging uses and gratification theory, we explored the key determinants of players' stickiness in online sports simulation games (OSSG). We collected data in China through an online survey and used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that gratification of both enjoyment and achievement needs were key antecedents to players' stickiness in OSSG, and the role of enjoyment was stronger than that of achievement. Players' sports knowledge and the fantasy level of OSSG had a significant positive impact on gratification of both needs, whereas players' fanship and novelty level of OSSG had a significant positive influence on enjoyment need gratification. This study contributes to e-sports research by uncovering the motivations for stickiness in OSSG and by extending uses and gratification theory in e-sports context.
Keywords
online sports simulation games, enjoyment, achievement, needs gratification, player stickiness
Driven by the prospective growth of e-sports, many studies have been conducted to explore players' motivations for playing these games, considering e-sports as a homogeneous category (Pizzo et al., 2018; Qian et al., 2020). However, it has been found that people's motivations for playing a specific e-sport vary by type. Jang and Byon (2020) found that hedonic motivation, habit, and price value were significant factors driving gameplay intention in the simulation e-sports context, and that hedonic motivation, habit, and effort expectancy were significant motivations for physical enactment e-sports. Similarly, Pizzo et al. (2018) argued that players' motivation to attend sport simulations were more closely related to physical sports than to other e-sports.
As one of the most popular online sports genres, online sports simulation games (OSSG) comprise sports-themed online games that emulate real-life sports, such as Madden NFL, NBA 2K, and the FIFA series. In these games, players choose in-game avatars that represent real athletes and conform to rules that mimic those associated with the real-life sports (Kim & Ross, 2006). Players can recreate historical races; they can also create their own races using avatars that perform according to the athletes' actual abilities and the conditions of the racetrack or sports field. Despite the popularity of OSSG in recent years (Jang & Byon, 2020), little is known about players' motivations for their continued use of these games. To fill this gap we analyzed data collected from...