Social Network Games Research Articles

The role of network embeddedness across multiple social networks: Evidence from mobile social network games

This article examines peer influences from network relationships within a social network game (i.e., embeddedness) and across such games (i.e., multiplexity). Drawing on social influence theory, we develop a bivariate Poisson model of users’ repeated visits and latent attrition that accommodates peer interaction after controlling for homophily. We estimate the model using data from two social network games with considerable overlap among network members. We find that friends who are only multiplex across games exert greater peer influence on users’ game visits than members who are embedded within a single game. We also determined that ignoring network multiplexity across games may lead firms to mistarget users due to biased peer influences of embedded friends. This result provides an unresearched explanation—strength of peer influence—for the mixed findings in previous literature on network embeddedness. We utilized our results to conduct several scenario analyses to demonstrate how firms can effectively manage users’ engagement and target users in multiple social network games.

Co-occurring addiction problems among high school students in Sousse (Tunisia)

Abstract Background Adolescence is a transitory period characterized by psychological, physical and emotional changes. Teenagers seek new experiences and engage in a range of risky behaviors, including the consumption of psychoactive substances that lead to addiction problems. Adolescent addiction represents a major public health and safety issue. Addictions co-occur in the same individual, increasing the risk of negative outcomes and health problems. We aimed to determine the prevalence of occurring and co-occurring addiction behaviors among high school students in the region of Sousse and to specify the risk factors. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from February 5 to March 14, 2018 in public high schools in the governorate of Sousse. The data were collected by anonymous self-administered questionnaire, then processed and analyzed using the SPSS software version 10. Results A total of 1399 high school students were included in our study. An average age of 17±2.28 years and a female predominance (60.5%) were noted. The prevalence of tobacco product use and alcohol consumption was 20.9% and 10.1% respectively. The prevalence of illicit substance use was 7%. Facebook and video game addiction were reported among 36.1% and 35.3% high school students respectively. The analysis of co-occurring addiction problems showed that 12.2% and 4.5% had two and three addiction problems, respectively. Almost 3% of included adolescents had the maximum number of four addiction problems. Multivariate analysis showed that co-occurring addiction increases among boys, participants that repeated the grade and among those with moderate or severe depression, anxiety and alexithymia. Conclusions The findings have implications for identifying the risk factors of co-occurring addictive behaviors, and the development of primary prevention strategies resulting from such factors Key messages The prevalence of addictive behavior is very high in middle school students. Understanding the risk factors of co-occurrence addictive problems is important for prevention program planning.

Reciprocal Relationships between Trajectories of Loneliness and Screen Media Use during Adolescence

Adolescence is the peak period for loneliness. Now a ubiquitous part of the adolescent landscape, electronic screens may provide avenues for ameliorating feelings of loneliness. Conversely, they may act as risk factors for the development of such feelings. Although cross-sectional studies to date have investigated the relationship between screen use and loneliness, longitudinal studies are needed if causal and directional associations are to be investigated. Utilising an accelerated longitudinal design and online survey we collected four waves of data from 1919 secondary school adolescents aged 10–15 years over two years. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models tested whether changes in five types of screen use (i.e., total screen time, social media use, gaming, passive screen use, and web use) are associated with changes in loneliness in the subsequent time-point, or changes in loneliness are associated with changes in screen use in the subsequent time-point. We found significant reciprocal associations between screen use and loneliness, with the strongest associations between social networking and electronic gaming and quality of friendships. These findings highlight that any significant increase in an adolescent’s screen use may be a potential indicator of changes in quality of friendships or feelings of isolation.

Efficient Estimation of Network Games of Incomplete Information: Application to Large Online Social Networks

This paper presents a structural discrete choice model with social influence for large-scale social networks. The model is based on an incomplete information game and permits individual-specific parameters of consumers. It is challenging to apply this type of models to real-life scenarios for two reasons: (1) The computation of the Bayesian–Nash equilibrium is highly demanding; and (2) the identification of social influence requires the use of excluded variables that are oftentimes unavailable. To address these challenges, we derive the unique equilibrium conditions of the game, which allow us to employ a stochastic Bayesian estimation procedure that is scalable to large social networks. To facilitate the identification, we utilize community-detection algorithms to divide the network into different groups that, in turn, can be used to construct excluded variables. We validate the proposed structural model with the login decisions of more than 25,000 users of an online social game. Importantly, this data set also contains promotions that were exogenously determined and targeted to only a subgroup of consumers. This information allows us to perform exogeneity tests to validate our identification strategy using community-detection algorithms. Finally, we demonstrate the managerial usefulness of the proposed methodology for improving the strategies of targeting influential consumers in large social networks.This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

Combining Search-Based Procedural Content Generation and Social Gaming in the Petalz Video Game

Search-based procedural content generation methods allow video games to introduce new content continually, thereby engaging the player for a longer time while reducing the burden on developers. However, games so far have not explored the potential economic value of unique evolved artifacts. Building on this insight, this paper presents for the first time a Facebook game called Petalz in which players can share flowers they breed themselves with other players through a global marketplace. In particular, the market in this social game allows players to set the price of their evolved aesthetically-pleasing flowers in virtual currency. Furthermore, the transaction in which one player buys seeds from another creates a new social element that links the players in the transaction. The combination of unique user-generated content and social gaming in Petalz facilitates meaningful collaboration between users, positively influences the dynamics of the game, and opens new possibilities in digital entertainment.

User Activities in Game Replay Sharing Communities and Their Implications for User Retention

Online social games such as World of Tanks (WoT) have attracted hundreds of millions of users not only to play the games but also to share game replays and to watch games played by others in online game replay sharing communities. To date, user retention, including player retention for games and uploader retention for replay sharing communities, remains a key challenge in game design and in maintaining the community prosperity. In this article, we revisit the user retention problem and we deal with the player and the uploader retention problem simultaneously, through leveraging both the in- and out-game features uniquely provided by online game replay sharing communities. To this end, we have collected a large-scale dataset from a replay sharing community named WoTreplays, which contains records of over 380 000 game replays and nearly 2 million users. For the player retention problem, we examine traditional factors including the activity level, the gaming performance, and the social relationships of players, and we include additional features that are intuitively informative, such as how many users have watched a player, which are provided uniquely by the game replay sharing communities. Similarly, for the uploader retention problem, we study the activity level and the popularity of uploaders in game replay sharing communities and additionally include their gaming performance and social relationships in the games as a supplement. Based on our findings, we build machine-learned classifiers that can accurately predict users who will play intensively and users who will share a large number of game replays in the future. Among other results, we find that: 1) for both game playing and replay sharing, the activity level and the popularity of the users are highly skewed; 2) the influence between the gaming activity and the gaming performance is mutual; 3) while the majority of users do not form long-term relationships, a small fraction of users connect very closely; and 4) the gaming performance and the user popularity are very informative for predicting highly active users.

Patterns of Disciplinary Involvement and Academic Collaboration in Gambling Research: A Co-Citation Analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the current academic research foci in peer-reviewed studies on gambling. The researchers used co-citation analysis as a bibliometrics method. All the gambling-related publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science were identified, and their citation patterns were analyzed. Our dataset includes a total of 2418 peer-reviewed gambling studies published over the five-year period from 2014–2018. The VOSviewer tool was used to visualize bibliometric networks and reveal key clusters among the studies. The findings indicate that gambling researchers mostly cited authors from the disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, health science, and psychiatry. Only 2% of the cited authors were from other disciplines, such as those in the social sciences and humanities. The most frequently cited sources also reveal the same pattern: that gambling researchers mostly cited articles published in neuroscience, psychology, and health science journals. The publications reviewed deal mainly with the pathological and treatment aspects of gambling. We also discovered some unique patterns of citation and collaboration, focusing on topics such as videogames, social network games, family, business, and tourism.

Online social games: The effect of social comparison elements on continuance behaviour

Online social games, played within social networks or games requiring social interaction with peers, are revolutionizing the nature of video-games due to their social aspect and the ability of users to compare their performance with their friends or people in their network. Social comparison features, such as leaderboards, individual scores, achievement badges and level maps, are commonly used in online games to enforce the social interaction of players. However, one of the biggest challenges that the social game industry is currently facing is the ability to increase user enjoyment, and keep its players engaged in the games. To probe more deeply into whether and how players’ continuance intention is influenced by social comparison processes, we combine two theoretical lenses: social comparison theory and self-efficacy theory. We conducted real-world data collection to measure the impact of social comparisons in player perceived enjoyment, online social gaming self-efficacy and game continuance. The results indicate that upward identification and downward contrast are the most influential comparison elements in game continuance. The results of these two comparisons have significant implications for both the theoretical application of social comparison in online settings and for the practical implications of future game design.

The Development of Social Influence and Aesthetic on Purchase Intention

Due to the development of internet nowadays, people utilize it with games and it results in the development of gaming industries that leads to strong existence of virtual economy. However, the development of the gaming industry in Indonesia was indeed a little late compared to other countries. This study generates a new perspective that describes purchase intention on virtual goods in Massively Multiplayer Online Social Games (MMOSG), Audition, in Indonesia. This research is done through a survey by using questionnaire which acquired 200 Audition players as respondents. The data processing used is structural equation modeling. Results of the study show factors that significantly influence purchase intention on virtual goods are social influence and aesthetic in which purchase intention affects actual purchase behavior, while price utility and satisfaction do not influence purchase intention.

Capitalizing on the spirit of giving: seeding virtual gift purchases in online social networks

PurposeVirtual gifts have emerged as a common feature of online communities, social gaming and social networks. This paper aims to examine how network-related variables and gift-seeding impact virtual gift sales. The network variables include gift-giver centrality and gift-giving dispersion, capturing, respectively, the relative importance of gift-givers in a network and their tendency to give gifts to a greater or lesser number of network peers. Gift-seeding tactics capture social network firms’ attempts to stimulate virtual gift purchases by awarding virtual gifts to network members.Design/methodology/approachThis study develops and estimates a fixed-effects panel data regression model to analyze virtual gift purchase data for a large social network service.FindingsGift-giver centrality, gift-giving dispersion and gift-seeding increase virtual gift purchases. Increases in consumers’ receipt of seed gifts from social network firms (“direct seeding”) and from other consumers (“indirect seeding”) increases virtual gift purchases. However, the extent to which consumers give seed gifts to their friends in the social network (“seed mediation”) does not affect sales. Greater gift-giver centrality amplifies (attenuates) the positive effects of direct (indirect) seeding. At greater levels of gift-giving dispersion, the effects of indirect seeding and seed mediation become negative. Furthermore, gift-seeding has spillover effects on virtual good (non-gift) purchases.Research limitations/implicationsThis study’s data, drawn from a South Korean social network service, offer unique and valuable social network information on actual virtual gift purchases and their seeding. Future research should replicate the results of the study outside the South Korean context.Practical implicationsGiven the effects reported in this study, social network firms can facilitate the purchases of virtual gifts by improving the targeting of consumers in social networks and gift-seeding tactics.Originality/valueThis study uniquely examines the individual and interactive effects of network-related variables and gift-seeding on virtual gift sales. The study is seminal in its examination of how gift-seeding can be used as a marketing tactic to increase virtual gift purchases.

Facebook Games for English Language Learning: What Student-Teachers Say?

This exploratory case study aimed at investigating the student-teachers’ views on using Facebook games for language learning. The participants were 48 student-teachers at the EFL Department of the Faculty of Education at a Libyan public university. They were required to play Facebook games for two weeks and then present their experiences through oral presentations and reflective journals. Data were collected through student-teachers’ presentations and reflective journals. Data were analyzed qualitatively using a thematic inductive approach. Although few student-teachers had negative views, most of the student-teachers had positive views on using Facebook games for learning. They believed that Facebook games teach players following instructions and provide opportunities for language improvement, especially for vocabulary learning. We expect that our findings would provide teachers and practitioners with ideas for classroom research and encourage researchers to conduct further and more rigorous testing on integrating Facebook games into the EFL classroom.

In-game Social Interaction and Gaming Disorder: A Perspective From Online Social Capital

Background and Aims: Social interaction in the online games has been found to predict gaming disorder, but little research has examined the mechanism of this association. Drawing on the social capital theory, the present study investigated the mediating role of online social capital on the relationship between in-game social interaction and gaming disorder and the moderating role of alienation on the relationship between online social capital and gaming disorder.Methods: A sample of 457 Chinese massively multiplayer online role-playing game gamers was recruited to complete the In-game Social Interaction Questionnaire, Online Social Capital Scale, Alienation Scale, and Pathological Gaming Scale.Results: The results showed that online social capital was a mediator in the relationship between in-game social interaction and gaming disorder. Moreover, for individuals with low alienation, the effect of online social capital on gaming disorder was weaker than for those with high alienation.Conclusions: The present study provides new insight into the complex processes involved in the effect of in-game social interaction on gaming disorder, and the results have important theoretical and practical implications.

Predictors of Habitual and Addictive Smartphone Behavior in Problematic Smartphone Use.

ObjectiveSmartphones have become common, and problematic smartphone use (PSU) is increasing. Predictors of PSU should be identified to prevent it. Little is known about the role of content types of smartphone use as predictors of PSU. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the predictors of two proposed concepts of PSU, namely habitual smartphone behavior (SB) and addictive SB, within the context of the application (app) categories. MethodsWe studied 1,039 smartphone users using online surveys conducted between January 2 and 31, 2019. We employed multiple regression analysis to identify the predictors of habitual and addictive SB. We controlled for sex and age (mean=39.20). ResultsCommon predictors of habitual and addictive SB were the use of social networking services, games, entertainment apps, and average weekend smartphone usage time. The predictors of habitual SB were the use of web and lifestyle apps, weekly usage frequency, and sex (female) and the predictors of addictive SB were the use of shopping apps and sleep duration. ConclusionThis study revealed the need to consider habitual and addictive SB in evaluating PSU. The predictors in terms of the content types of smartphone usage can be used to develop monitoring and prevention services for PSU.

Anti-social social gaming: community conflict in a Facebook game

ABSTRACT Social Network Games (SNGs) are played via social networking sites such as Facebook. In this article, I examine some of the negative interactions that happen within SNGs that may be obscured by the assumption—driven by benevolent sexism—that these games are entirely collaborative. Drawing on posts made to an online forum devoted to YoWorld—a long-running Facebook game—I detail player frustrations with bullying and other forms of interpersonal conflict. I argue that if casual games are only ever seen as docile spaces of collaborative play, it reaffirms the gendered and stereotypical assumptions underpinning who plays SNGs and for what reasons. Furthermore, I argue that assumptions about collaborative and welcoming environments may also be setting novice players up for disappointment when they inevitably encounter anti-social behaviors within a SNG gaming community. If SNGs are framed as an easier entry point for girls and women into broader gaming cultures, it is imperative that alongside encouraging their play, we also equip them with the necessary tools to respond to the negative interactions that they might experience, thereby reducing the likelihood of their eventual disengagement from gaming.

A Dual-Identity Perspective of Obsessive Online Social Gaming

Obsessive online social gaming has become a worldwide societal challenge that deserves more scholarly investigation. However, this issue has not received much attention in the information systems (IS) research community. Guided by dual-system theory, we theoretically derive a typology of obsessive technology use and contextually adapt it to conceptualize obsessive online social gaming. We also build upon identity theory to develop a dual-identity perspective (i.e., IT identity and social identity) of obsessive online social gaming. We test our research model using a longitudinal survey of 627 online social game users. Our results demonstrate that the typology of obsessive technology use comprises four interrelated types: impulsive use, compulsive use, excessive use, and addictive use. IT identity positively affects the four obsessive online social gaming archetypes and fully mediates the effect of social identity on obsessive online social gaming. The results also show that IT identity is predicted by embeddedness, self-efficacy, and instant gratification, whereas social identity is determined by group similarity, group familiarity, and intragroup communication. Our study contributes to the IS literature by proposing a typology of obsessive technology use, incorporating identity theory to provide a contextualized explanation of obsessive online social gaming and offering implications for addressing the societal challenge.

Development of Habitual Behaviour in Online Social Gaming

Game habit and game addiction are distinguished in terms of psychological motivation, meaning, and a player's experience of gaming. The majority of contemporary studies address either the challenges or difficulties of particular habit formation often in the context of disciplined force or negative consequences of game addiction. Game habit does not necessarily imply game addiction. The objective of this study is to investigate the key antecedents of game habit formation using a quantitative study with 341 respondents collected in West Malaysia and analysed via structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate that game habit formation is formed more naturally with automatic control mechanisms, influenced by play intensity, flow experience, and self-efficacy, and the effect of play intensity towards game habit is interacted by network externality.

The relationship between probable ADHD and playing MMORPGs with the severity of disordered gaming: The effect of gaming motivations

Objective: The main aim of the present study was to consider the impact of gaming motivations among young adults when evaluating the relationship between probable attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), with disordered gaming. Method: In the present study, participants were assessed with the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scales (ASRS-v1.1), the Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ), and the nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS9-SF). Results: Participants with probable ADHD (n=143, 19.2%) and without probable ADHD (n=602, 80.8%) did not differ according to the current age, gender, presence of romantic relationship, marital status, where and with whom they are living, employment status and time spent on the gaming. Compared to participants without probable ADHD, those with probable ADHD had higher rates of having a game console, purchasing games, gaming more than usual on weekends, having problems related to gaming, probable internet gaming disorder (IGD) according to IGDS9-SF cut-off score and higher scales scores (IGDS9-SF and MOGQ), whereas they had a lower age at first gaming. Among different game types, those with probable ADHD were gaming more with multiplayer online battle arena games, social network games, music games, MMORPGs, sports games/car games, and horror-themed/survival games. Scores of all six types of gaming motives were higher among those with probable ADHD, and among them coping/escape, social, skill development, and fantasy distinguished the presence of probable ADHD. In the ANCOVA analysis, the presence of probable ADHD and the use of MMORPGs (as well as online gaming motives [coping/escape, recreation, fantasy, social and competition]) predicted the severity of IGD symptoms, and also these effects also interacted, involving probable ADHD and using MMORPGs. Conclusion: These findings suggest that those with probable ADHD may have different gaming characteristics than those without probable ADHD. Probable ADHD and using MMORPGs are related to the severity of disordered gaming, along with almost all type of online gaming motivations. Also, the effects of probable ADHD and MMORPGs use interacted with each other.

Blockchain Model of Sensitive Information Identification in Social Online Games

This paper studies the sensitive information recognition and processing system in social online games. A real-time data mining framework for sensitive information on online games in the blockchain mode is proposed. A large-scale social online game chat room database is selected for testing, with SKLearn library based on Python is used for data preprocessing. The model training and verification are implemented through tensorflow. The results show that the accuracy of TextCNN is over 5% higher than that of Naive Bayes and CNN models for short text recognition in online game context, so TextCNN model can meet the requirements for high efficiency and accuracy of sensitive information recognition in large-scale online games. The conclusion proves that the blockchain-based online game sensitive information mining framework has the advantage of alliance chain hierarchical management, the characteristics of the distributed ledgers leaving traces in the whole process of information dissemination, and enhanced contract enforcement through the smart contracts and consensus mechanisms.

WITHDRAWN: Recognition and prevention of cyberharassment in social media using classification algorithms

Cyberbullying is the aggressive pressure or harassment produce through electronic devices like laptops, desktop or computer, smart phones, and tablets. The harassment can occur in the environment of social networking sites, chat rooms, and gaming platforms where people can view and take part in the exchanging of their thoughts. The different kind of cyberbullying or harassment creates the humiliation through hateful comments on digital platforms/apps, or through SMS or messaging. It involves the sending posting, or sharing negative, disgusting, nasty or wrong information about another individual for causing embarrassment and the malicious and unjustified harming of a person's good reputation. Machine learning algorithms give a chance to find successfully predicting, detecting and preventing undesirable, harmful and unwanted opinions of human behavior, such as cyberharassment. It gives the pivotal information on new ways in the way of detecting and preventing antagonistic or violent human behavior, including cyber harassment detection and prevention in online social environmental sites. ML algorithms gives an prospect to completely expect, detect and prevent hurtful attitude of human behavior, such as cyber bullying. A model is proposed to detect and prevent the negative opinion in social media using Classification model algorithms. Profanity detection library function and Natural Language Processing are used to detect and prevent the negative opinions in the social media. This proposed model is helpful for the Government to identify the negative opinions given by the users in the social media and they can take actions. The development of such an application has the ability to stop and reduce the rate of cyberbullying that has been happening social media.

Player Attachment to Mobile Social Network Games: An Information Processing View

This study applied the information processing view and the concept of fit to improve understanding of how attachment behaviour and continued use in mobile social network game (M-SNG) players is affected by the alignment between their motivation and technological capability. A quantitative method and a cross-sectional study design were used to evaluate the research model. Data were collected for 427 active M-SNG players in Taiwan. The proposed model was tested with fit as a covariation and with fit as a propensity score in matching method. The results of this study verified that (1) coalignment between motivation and technological capability is positively associated with attachment behaviour in M-SNG players; (2) M-SNG players who have a high coalignment between motivation and technological capability have stronger attachment behaviour compared to players with low coalignment; and (3) attachment behaviour is positively associated with continued use of M-SNGs. This study contributes to the literature by improving understanding of the antecedents of attachment and continued use in M-SNG players. For providers and developers, this study also provides insights into how to improve the business performance of M-SNGs.