WHY DO PEOPLE PLAY ONLINE GAMES? THE ROLE OF ONLINE GAMER INNOVATIVENESS

Abstract

Games played online through Internet create a new entertainment area for today's innovative consumers. This innovative area, which has become increasingly popular with new applications and features added, draws attention of consumers for many different reasons. From this point of view, the purpose of this study is (i) to investigate why consumers are playing online games and (ii) to understand the effects of online gamer innovativeness, the needs, characteristics and the popularity of online games on online games playing intention. For this purpose, 589 people were surveyed and the data were analyzed by structural equation modeling. All six proposed hypotheses have been accepted and it was found that online gamer innovativeness is positively related to perceived characteristics of online games, perceived needs of online gamers, and perceived popularity of online games. Moreover, these three dimensions are effective on online games playing intention. Suggestions and limitations were given for further researches.