Oftentimes, both the media and researchers
into media effects collapse all video gamers into a
simplistic archetype. While this facilitates making
sweeping generalizations of potentially deviant
behaviors or consequences (i.e., addiction and aggression),
this strategy inevitably ignores the important
fact that different people choose to play
games for very different reasons, and thus, the
same video game may have very different meanings
or consequences for different players. The
study described in this paper was an attempt to
articulate the myriad of motivations of play
among MMO players, and to explore how these
motivational factors can provide us with analytical
tools to describe and understand the preference
for and effects of game-play for different
kinds of players. The empirical model developed
in this study provides a solid foundation for future
quantitative research in online games by providing
a model to understand player motivations,
a tool to assess those motivations, and thus also a
means to understand usage patterns, in-game behaviors,
and demographic variables in relation to
player motivations.