사용자의 특성이 온라인 게임 충성도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 자극추구성향을 중심으로 (A Study on the Effect of the User Characteristics on Online Game Loyalty: Focusing on User’s Sensation Seeking Tendency)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국경영학회
· 수록지 정보 : 경영학연구 / 35권 / 4호 / 1105 ~ 1130페이지
· 저자명 : 이선로, 노웅철

초록

게임산업의 비중이 계속 증가하는 추세에서 글로벌 경쟁력을 갖춘 게임 개발을 위해서는 우선 온라인 게임을 즐기는 소비자들의 깊은 이해가 요구되며, 그들이 어떻게 게임을 즐기고, 왜 특정 게임에 더 매력을 느끼는지를 체계적으로 조사할 필요가 있다. 따라서 본 연구는 고객별로 추구하는 자극의 유형과 정도가 상이할 수 있다는 일련의 심리학적 연구 결과를바탕으로 온라인 게임에서의 고객충성도에 영향을 미치는 선행요인들이 사용자의 자극추구성향에 따라 어떠한 차이를 보이는지 검증해 보고자 하였다.
연구 결과 충성도에 미치는 구전 효과는 사용자의 자극추구성향에 영향을 받지 않는 것으로 나타났으나, 플로우의 경험은자극추구성향에 따라 온라인 게임 충성도에 서로 다른 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 즉, 자극추구성향이 낮은 집단에서는 플로우의 영향이 유의한 수준에서 나타났지만, 자극추구성향이 높은 집단에서는 플로우의 정도가 충성도에 미치는영향이 유의하지 않게 나타났다. 이는 높은 자극추구성향을 가진 집단의 플로우 경험은 사용자에게 새로운 대안에 대한호기심을 불러일으켜 다른 게임으로의 전환을 가져올 수 있다는 것을 의미할 수 있다. 따라서 온라인 게임 업체는 플로우경험의 선행요인(예: 도전감)을 게임 사용자의 자극추구성향에 따라 지속적으로 조절할 필요가 있으며, 구전 효과를 극대화할 수 있도록 커뮤니티 활동을 체계적으로 지원함으로써 온라인 게임 사용자의 충성도를 유지할 수 있다고 판단된다.

영어초록

In recent years, the market for online games has become an important part of the entertainment industry. For more competitive game development, the game industries need to understand why certain games are perceived more attractive by gamers and why they show such a high level of loyalty to a certain game. Previous research on the online game loyalty tends to focus on the gamers’ mechanical interactions, which have been identified as facilitating factors for increasing the level of gamers’ flow that positively influences their loyalty. Also, previous research attempts to examine the relationship between the gamers’ environmental factors and their loyalty, neglecting to examine gamers’ different reaction patterns to the contents in the games.
This study, therefore, attempts to investigate the impacts of gamers’ characteristics on the flows and loyalty in the online game environments focusing on the gamers’ sensation seeking tendency. Zuckerman(1979) defined sensation seeking as “the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experience.” Sensation seeking has emerged as an important factor for explaining a variety of behaviors including internet use and video games. This study intends to apply the Zuckerman’s sensation seeking theory to the context of the online game loyalty in order to examine the differential effects of the loyalty factors identified in the past.
Hence, a sample of 332 gamers has been classified into two groups depending on their sensation seeking level, and a multi-group structural equation model(MSEM) has been tested in order to compare the impacts of loyalty factors between two groups.
Results show that flow experience, which has been identified as the most important antecedent of gamers’ loyalty by previous research, may have differential impacts on the loyalty depending on the gamers’ sensation seeking tendency. The impact of flow experience on the loyalty has been significant for the group revealing a low level of sensation seeking, while not significant for other group revealing a high level of sensation seeking. This result indicates that gamers who tend to seek high level of sensation might switch to other games that satisfy their optimum level of sensation, rather than stay with lowered level of flow.
On the other hand the word of mouth shows consistent impacts on loyalty regardless of gamers’ sensation seeking tendency. This indicates that in the online game environments the social interactions through the community activities might have greater impacts on the gamers’ loyalty than the mechanical interaction factors like flow experience. Game developers, therefore, need to continuously provide new contents and environments to match the gamers’required sensation level and support cyber communities for maintaining a good sense of the word of mouth.

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