Abstract
AbstractMassively multiplayer online role‐playing game (MMORPG) addiction presents a serious issue worldwide and has attracted increasing attention from academic and other public communities. This article addresses this critical issue and fills research gaps by proposing and testing a research model of MMORPG addiction. Building on the conceptual foundation of the hedonic management model of addiction and the technology affordance perspective, we develop a research model explaining how MMORPG affordances (ie, achievement, social and immersion affordances) are associated with the duality of hedonic effects (ie, perceived positive mood enhancement and perceived negative mood reduction) and the extent of MMORPG addiction. Using structural equation modelling, we empirically test our research model with 406 MMORPG players. The results show that both perceived positive mood enhancement and perceived negative mood reduction positively correlate with the extent of MMORPG addiction. Furthermore, achievement and immersion affordances are positively associated with the duality of hedonic effects, whereas social affordance is not. Our study contributes to the growing body of technology addiction literature by revealing the relationships between the two hedonic effects and the extent of MMORPG addiction, and by offering a contextualised explanation of the role of MMORPG affordances in these relationships. We offer an alternative perspective on the far‐reaching, unintended relationships between technological affordances and addictive technology use. Our study provides game developers and policymakers with insights into preventing MMORPG addiction to create an entertaining, healthy virtual playground.
Highlights
In response to the call for information systems (IS) research on the dark side of technology use (Tarafdar, Gupta, & Turel, 2015), research on technology addiction has grown steadily in the IS discipline
We extend the hedonic management model of addiction by using the technology affordance perspective (Markus & Silver, 2008) to examine how Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) affordances are associated with the duality of hedonic effects in gameplay
We examine the relationships between MMORPG-specific affordances and the duality of hedonic effects, and how they correlate with the extent of MMORPG addiction
Summary
In response to the call for information systems (IS) research on the dark side of technology use (Tarafdar, Gupta, & Turel, 2015), research on technology addiction has grown steadily in the IS discipline. Like the online gaming addiction literature in general, most MMORPG addiction studies stem from the clinical psychology, medical and psychiatry fields. Researchers argue that players engage in online gaming to enhance positive mood and reduce negative mood (Barnett & Coulson, 2010), the two types of hedonic effects have not been systematically investigated in the context of MMORPG addiction. Considering that MMORPG addiction is a serious societal issue and gaps remain in the literature, our primary research objective is to enrich our theoretical understanding of MMORPG addiction by examining the relationships among MMORPG-specific variables, the duality of hedonic effects, and the extent of MMORPG addiction.
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