The role of Internet addiction in online game loyalty: an exploratory study

Purpose – The paper's aim is to explore the factors that affect the online game addiction and the role that online game addiction plays in the relationship between online satisfaction and loyalty.Design/methodology/approach – A web survey of online game players was conducted, with 1,186 valid responses collected. Structure equation modeling – specifically partial least squares – was used to assess the relationships in the proposed research framework.Findings – The results indicate that perceived playfulness and descriptive norms influence online game addiction. Furthermore, descriptive norms indirectly affect online game addiction through perceived playfulness. Addiction also directly contributes to loyalty and attenuates the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. This finding partially explains why people remain loyal to an online game despite being dissatisfied.Practical implications – Online gaming vendors should strive to create amusing game content and to maintain their online game communitie...

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