earticle

영어

The forecast of the growth of the online gaming industry in Korea is expected to reach over 7.2 trillion Korean won by 2012. Nearly 60% of domestic residents play online games, of which 30% enjoy online games during their leisure time. Online games need to be dealt with through a neutral perspective rather than through a negative perspective such as addiction, because online games are becoming a part of life. In addition, though achievement motivation for online games has been focused on in early research, socialization motivation is emerging because communicating and socializing is possible and common while playing online games. This is especially the case for Massive Multi-user Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) with the advancement of game development technology. Socially interacting with other gamers, the online gamer not only builds new relationships (bridging social capital), but also strengthens existing relationships (boding social capital). However, previous research has concentrated on only one of types of user interactions for bridging social capital for new relations or for bonding social capital of existing social relations and has not simultaneously analyzed interactions for both bridging and bonding social capital. Therefore, this study explores both the bridging and bonding social capital with a neutral dependent construct, the continuance of online game, and provides new findings and implications for research and the industry.