Abstract
Nowadays, video games are part of our everyday life, and the number of players is increasing each day passing by. Thus, understanding what motivations drive people to play video games is becoming a very important topic for researchers. That is why this systematic review had the objective to summarize the existing literature about gaming motivation by including papers that used a validated tool to do so while excluding those that did address just the psychopathological aspect of gaming. The systematic review was carried out through the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRSIMA). A total of 53 papers were included in this systematic review, and the findings revealed that nonaddicted players and addicted players seem both to play for social, achievement, and competition motivations. Male players appeared more oriented to play to compete with others, while female players seemed to use games for relationship and social reasons. Gaming motivation was stronger in younger people.
1. Introduction
Despite common belief, video games did not enter our lives rapidly but have been in it for a very long time. A video game is defined as “a game which we play thanks to an audio-visual apparatus and which can be based on a story” [1]. The journey started in the early 1950s with simple games; in these days, it continues with more than a hundred game types on more than twenty platforms [2].
On top of these technological developments, with the rapid increase in Internet usage during the 2000s, today, 4.9 billion people have access to the internet [3]. This situation enabled creators to sell games with ease while paving the way for gamers to access them. According to 2020 statistics, 2.69 billion people have played a video game at least once, and 91% of the revenue of the gaming industry, which is 158$ billion, is from digital game sales [4].
Given the multidisciplinary nature of the topic, the scientific literature is abundant with research papers from different fields addressing the topic [5, 6]. The main core-researched areas in game studies right now are gaming addiction addressed both by the psychological and the medical field [7, 8], the use of serious games as efficient learning tools in educational fields or for training purposes [9, 10], games and gamification aspects related to work environments [11, 12], games and the consumer behaviour in terms of engagement and entertainment [13–15], money spent in games [16, 17], games used as simulations to refine or learn skills in certain work fields such as the air industry or in surgery [18, 19], games and aggressive behaviours [20, 21], and, lastly, the motivation behind the use and consumption of games [22, 23]. This latter aspect has received particular attention by researchers which determined an increasing number of published works about this topic in recent years (around 230 sources about this topic per year starting from 2018 up to today on Google Scholar). Nonetheless, there is a huge gap in literature regarding this theme in terms of findings; majority of the papers only address online games [14, 22, 24, 25]; the tools created to assess motivations are either based on only online games [22, 26, 27], thus excluding almost all of the players that do not play online that much, or were created ad hoc for the research. Moreover, there is a lack of shared consensus regarding the definition of each game motivation (e.g., coping and diversion) [22, 28, 29], or even which ones should be investigated and measured.
For all these reasons, the current literature about game motivation appears to be extremely heterogeneous in its findings but also particularly interesting. For these reasons, this PRISMA is aimed at giving a detailed excursus on what the researchers have discovered up to this point about game motivation, without any specific focus as a game genre, sex, etc. As of now, this paper has a double objective: (1) to do a systematic review of all the motivations that could possibly be behind the action of playing games and the variables associated with them and (2) to list all of the existent and used tools to do so.
2. Methods and Procedure
2.1. Eligibility Criteria
This systematic review was carried out through the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. All the studies included have the following criteria: (i) being written in English, (ii) papers must address specifically motivation for gaming, (iii) being indexed by Google Scholar (unpublished thesis and dissertation studied are included), (iv) having a validated tool to measure motivations and needs for gaming (ad hoc instruments were included if they were validated through a factor analysis, and statistic data about it were reported in the paper), and (v) not having a clinical sample (studies with both clinical and nonclinical samples were deemed eligible, but only the results related to the nonclinical sample are reported).
Studies were excluded if they were (i) addressing mainly psychological aspects of gaming addiction, (ii) not written in English, (iii) not using a validated survey to measure gaming motivation, and (iv) papers that apart from identifying gaming motivation, later did not investigate these ones with other external associated variables.
2.2. Information Sources
Research papers were all retrieved and collected from Google Scholar by using the aforementioned criteria.
2.3. Search
Search was conducted throughout all the months of December 2021 and January and February 2022 by using the following keywords: “game motivation” (2540 sources) and “gaming motivation” (1060 sources).
2.4. Study Collection
All papers were initially screened by reading the abstract of potential interesting research. Further examination was done by reading the full papers so as to remove those who did not fit the criteria.
2.4.1. Study Selection
During the initial process of screening, 139 studies were accepted based on their title and abstract. Consequently, 18 of these studies were dropped due to not actually focusing on gaming motivations but instead psychopathological aspects of gaming addiction (), being qualitative studies or surveys with descriptive statistics only (), not focusing on motivations per se (), and not using proper instruments (). After reading the full papers, other 68 papers were dropped based on their content that did not fit the criteria to include them in the PRISMA or because, even though the abstract was in English, the full paper was not in such language. In the end, 53 papers were deemed eligible for this PRISMA (Figure 1).
3. Results
3.1. Characteristics of the Studies
53 studies were deemed eligible for this PRISMA systematic review about gaming motivation. All the included studies were cross–sectional, and they were using a validated tool to measure the aforementioned motivations.
The following side note is necessary to better understand the reading and eventually organize the information of the following paper; n refers to the number of studies, while k refers to the samples.
3.1.1. Questionnaires Used and/or Developed by the Studies
The most used survey instrument of these studies was the Motivation to Play in Online Games Questionnaire (MPOGQ; [26]) () which assesses three main dimensions, and each one composed of more subscales. The three dimensions are achievement1 (composed by the following subscales: advancement3, mechanics46, and competition13), social65 (composed by the following subscales: socializing65, teamwork72, and relationship59), and immersion35 (composed by the following subscales: discovery18, role-playing61, customization17, and escapism25).
Other four questionnaires that were fairly used in the analyzed papers were as follows: (a) The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS, [30]) (), which based on the Self-Determination Theory [31], assesses five main dimensions: presence54, competence12, relatedness58, autonomy7, and intuitive controls41; (b) the Motive for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ; [22]) () which assesses seven main motivations: competition13, coping15, fantasy28, social65, skill development63, escape25, and recreation57; (c) the Gaming Motivation Scale (GAMS; [32]) () which assesses five dimensions: intrinsic motivation38, integrated regulation36, identified regulation34, introjected regulation40, external regulation27, and amotivation5; (d) the Online Gaming Motivations Scale [27] () which assesses three main motivations: immersion35, achievement1, and social65.
One questionnaire was used a sufficient number of times: the Massively Multiplayer Online Games Motivations Scale (MMO-MS, [33]) (), only developed in spanish, assesses four main dimensions: exploration26, achievement1, socialization65, and dissociation20.
Four questionnaires were used only a couple of times: (a) the gaming attitudes, motivations, and experiences scales (GAMES; [34]) () which assess nine main motivations: story70, violence catharsis73, loss-aversion43, violent reward74, social interaction65, grinding31/completion16, escapism25, autonomy7/exploration26, and customization17; (b) the Digital Games Motivation Scale (DGMS; [35]) () which assesses Digital Games Motivation Scale eight main motivations: narrative49, social65, escapism25, moral self reaction47, agency4, pastime50, performance51, and habit32; (c) the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ; [28]) () which assesses eight main gaming motivations: recreation57, social interaction65, coping15, violent reward74, fantasy28, ognitive development10, customization17, and competition13; (d) the Video Game Uses and Gratifications Scale [29] () which assesses six dimensions: competition13, challenge9, fantasy28, arousal6, social interaction65, and diversion21.
The following questionnaires () were created ad hoc for the research and/or need further validation; thus, they were used only one time: (a) the ad hoc questionnaire Motivations to Play [36] () which assesses five motivations: achievement1, socializing65, immersion35, relaxing60, and escaping25; (b) the Computer Gaming Motivation Scale [37] (), only developed in Turkish, which assesses five dimensions: concentration14, entertainment24, learning42, escape25, and socialization65; (c) the Gaming Motive Scale [38] () which assesss three main motivations, each one composed of some subscales: ego-Centered Motives (fantasy28, competence12, exploration26, and challenge9), social motives (community11, social capital66, competition13, and team play71), and content-related motives (mechanics46 and narration48); (d) ad hoc Motivation Questionnaire created by the authors [39] () composed of four dimensions: socializing65, competition13, low cost44, and coping15; (e) the Smartphone Gaming Motivations [40] () which assesses six main motivations: arousal6, challenge9, fantasy28, competition13, diversion21, and social interaction65; (f) the Electronic Gaming Motive Questionnaire (EGMQ; [41]) () which assesses four dimensions: coping15, self-gratification62, enhancement23, and social65; (g) the Massively Multiplayer Online Motivations Inventory (MMI; [42]) () which assesses three main motivations: immersion35, achievement1, and social65; (h) the ad hoc Gaming Motivation Scale developed by the authors [43] () which assesses six main motivations: social external regulation68, game external regulation27, identified regulation34, intrinsic accomplishment37, intrinsic hedonic39, and amotivation5; (i) the Gamification User Types Hexad Scale [44] (n =1) which measures six gaming motivations related to six gamer profiles: philanthropist51, socialiser67, free spirit29, achiever2, disruptor19, and player53; (j) the ad hoc scale VideoGame Play [45] () which measures different motivations through the engagement dimension; (k) the Ubisoft Perceived Experience Questionnaire (UPEQ; [46]) () which assesses three main motivations: relatedness58, autonomy7, and competence12; (l) the ad hoc Uses and Gratification Questionnaire [47] which measures 9 different motivations: arousal6, diversion21, social interaction65, fantasy28, challenge9, hi-tech33, ego22, competition13, and realism56; (l) the ad hoc questionnaire to measure MMORPGs’ motivations [25] (n = 1) which assess achievement1, relationship59, immersion35, escapism25, and manipulation45.
Table 1 shows the motivational dimensions of each instrument with their respective Cronbach’s alpha. A glossary is also present in the appendix to give the definition of each measured motivation.
3.1.2. Geographical Areas of the Investigated Sample
Given the fact that the majority of these studies wanted to analyze motivations in a gamer sample that could be as representative as possible of the existing online communities, and most of the included papers in this systematic review () recruited their sample online through the Internet or other sampling methods. Still, the other studies recruited them through schools or via other methods and, as such, obtained results that are highly specific for certain countries. While considering that two studies [27, 50] sought to compare gamers from different geographical areas, specifically Hong Kong and Taiwan [27] and Germany, Singapore, and the United States [50], the distribution of the used samples is as follows: United States (), Spain (), Malaysia (), Germany (), Turkey (), China (), Norway (), Netherlands (), Singapore (), Hungary (), Belgium (), Australia (), Hong Kong (), Canada (), and Perù ().
3.1.3. Age Clusters of the Samples
Gaming is generally considered as an activity majorly done by young people, even though this phenomena is largely changing thanks to smartphone games. Furthermore, it is worth taking into consideration the fact that almost all the samples were recruited either online or through college and schools; thus, there might be a bias in the sampling method. While keeping this in mind, 45 of the sample were put in the cluster called “young people,” which defines a sample with a distribution of the mean age that falls between 18 and 35 (). The second cluster is composed of “underaged” samples; 5 were the samples whose mean of age was under 18 (). In addition, it is necessary to clarify that 5 papers did not report any mean of age but just the age range [47, 51–54], and 3 did not specify the distribution of the age neither with the mean nor the range [26, 30, 55], even if, regarding the paper done by Ryan et al. [30], this can be applied only for the first study that they included in their research. The third cluster, the “adult sample” whose mean of age was above 35, is composed of only two samples ().
Eventually, there is a side note to better explain the higher number of samples if compared to the numbers of papers. Six papers used more than one sample and divided them based on defined variables (). Wohn et al. [43] divided the two samples based on the game they played, thus writing more than one mean age, the MMO one belonging to the cluster of young age, while social network one belonging to the adult sample; Ratan et al. [50] also had three samples divided based on the country where they collected the data from (Germany, Singapore and the United States) with all of them belonging to the young sample; Sherry et al. [29] used five samples recruited from different school grades; the same goes for the study done by Greenberg et al. [47] which used also five samples coming from different school grades, but in the latter case, no means of age were given: finally, the study done by López-Fernández et al. [28] also used two sample of young players, one underage and one of young adults.
3.1.4. Theoretical Metamodel to Interpret the Results in Literature
While keeping in mind the heterogeneity of the current literature and its few existing and important models about gaming motivation, we tried to clusterize all the evidence gathered by researchers by putting them inside a new metamodel, mostly data-driven (Figure 2). This model could be considered inspired by Lewin’s field theory [56]. Behaviours are just a function of the interaction between people (and their psychological aspects) and the environment they are put in. Moreover, Maslow’s theory [57] showed that all human beings act to satisfy not only their physiological needs but also their psychological ones (e.g., relatedness, competence, and self-realization). People are motivated to do something because they have a psychological drive (or need) that pushes them towards that direction. These needs can be considered primordial in terms of human nature, but some of them are the creation of being born and belonging to a certain cultural context and a certain society. Basically, our metamodel can be divided in more layers, and it suggests that motivation can be put on a psychological level together with other theoretical (e.g., online self-worth; [58]) and empirical factors. The “psychological layer,” specifically motivation, can have an influence on the behaviours present in the “behavioral layer.” This direct relationship is moderated by the elements of the “socio-demographic layer,” which can also have a direct effect on the other two single-layers. As an example, younger people, especially students, have more free time compared to adults, and consequently, this means that this time could be spent in playing video games (i.e., behaviour) making their gaming motivation higher and specific (i.e., psychological). Another example, being a male player in a certain culture can determine different needs and motivations for playing as also different behaviours in the context they are in. According to data gathered by ESA [59], boys in the U.S prefer to play with other people, to have fun with a preference for sports and shooter and RPG games; girls prefer to play to relax and unwind on their own with a preference for puzzle games. Statistics showed that different countries tend to like different types of games, and this implies that different cultures may have an influence on gender and age preferences in terms of games and motivation. As an example, Japanese people seem to prefer life simulators or RPG [60], Italian people prefer sport and competitive games such as FIFA [61, 62], while Americans prefer shooter games [59, 63]. Even the places where games gather to play might be different depending on culture and context. For instance, Internet cafès (places where gamers can play online games through a rented pc) are extremely popular in medio-oriental and oriental countries (e.g., China and Turkey; [64–66]) but less popular in European countries, and they are mainly frequented by students. Therefore, the place where people can gather to share a common interest can have an impact on which type of game is the most popular and played in a country.
3.1.5. Investigated Variables
Gaming motivation is a multidisciplinary topic that can be covered by a wide variety of academic fields (e.g., marketing, business, cyber environments, psychology, and medicine), and, as such, there is a great variety of variables investigated.
The first group is labeled as “sociodemographic variables,” and the two main investigated ones are gender () and age (), directly followed by status/occupation (e.g., being a worker, a student, and being married) () and self description as a gamer or not (). Fewer studies also investigated the relation to spoken language [67], ethnicity [68], and the type of household [36].
The second group can be called “behavioral variables” since it focuses on specific behaviours associated with gaming motivations. Of this entire group, only one variable was investigated frequently, and it was gaming frequency (), also called weekly gaming in some papers. Other analyzed behaviours were as follows: “years of playing” (), sometimes also called “gaming experience”, which defines the years that participants spent playing a specific game or gaming; “daily play time” (), which are the hours spent playing per day or the average longest game session in hours in a day, and “playing or talking with other people” (); four variables were investigated just a couple of times: “future play” () defines as how much the participants were willing to keep playing the game; “time spent playing in the weekend” (); “players behavior in World of Warcraft” (), where the studies assessed an ensemble of specific actions done in World of Warcraft. Lastly, the following variables were assessed just one time: “Gaming duration” [69], intended as the longest gaming session the player ever had; “Pay to play” [70], which defines the money spent to play the game; “Daily usage of Information and Communication Technologies” [54]; “Continued play” [30], intended as the intentional behaviour of keep playing the same game”; “gaming during spare time” [34]; progression game, intended as a specific index calculated by the game [71]; “days played” [46].
The third group gathers all the variables associated with psychological aspects, and, as such, it is named “psychological variables.” Gaming addiction () was the main investigated association in many papers. The second most assessed one was personality traits (). All the others were assessed either a couple of times or just one single time, meaning that they might need more research. Specifically, the five variables investigated only two times are as follows: need for cognition (), the three psychological needs of the Self-Determination Theory [31, 72] (), loneliness (), values [38, 55], and enjoyment (). As already stated before, all the left variables in this group were investigated each one only by one paper, and it includes a great variety of psychological aspects. Regarding the topic of self–esteem, one paper in particular [58] investigated gaming motivations to assess the construct of “Online Self Worth” by creating a specific scale, while the other paper [30] simply assessed self-esteem with an already existent tool. The remaining studies of this group focused on the association between gaming motivations and avatar identification [73], loss of control [41], boredom [41], success for gaming intended as ego or task-oriented scores in games [45], willingness to change gaming habits [70], passion [74], the flow state while playing the game [75], status seeking in games [75], attitude towards online games [55], emotional intelligence [53], personal gender variables attributes such as having negative masculine attributes or positive femenine attributes [76], social capital [48], life satisfaction [48], physical presence [46], self expansion [51], self-described attitude [34], mood [30], and self engulfment [51].
The fourth, and last, group is composed of “variables associated to the Gaming environment” that do not fit any group mentioned above since they relate to game aspects or particular settings where the gamers play their games. The genre of game played (e.g., MMORPG, action, FPS, and MMO) was taken into consideration the most times with 7 studies, while style of play (e.g., playing PvP or playing solo) was assessed in two papers. The following ones were instead analyzed each one only by one paper: place where the game is played (Internet cafè or home) [71], type of server used [105], gaming platform used [137], physical health related to Pokémon Go [48], and the number of avatars possessed [33]. All statistical results are reported in Table 2.
3.1.6. Game Assessed in the Papers
Among the 53 studies, 18 did not specify what type of genre or games they were doing their research on, and 6 stated that they investigated players that play more than one genre. 14 of the papers specifically addressed gaming motivations associated with the MMORPG genre, while the MOBA genre was considered by 4 papers. MMO was the main topic of only 4 papers. Games are also getting extremely popular on smartphones, as such 3 papers assessed motivation for playing smartphone games specifically. The following genres or games were very specific or niche, and, as such, each one was addressed by just one paper: Pokèmon Go [48], social network games [43], Esport games [122], Ubisoft games [46], Travian [39], and Super Mario 64 [30]. To be more precise, the study done by Ryan et al. [30] was composed of more studies, and each one focused on a different game. This PRISMA review included the first one, which used Super Mario 64, and the fourth one, which used MMO players. Wohn et al. [43] also compared two different samples of gamers: social network and MMO players.
3.2. Study Results
The following sections will present the results of each group of identified variables: “sociodemographic variables,” “behavioural variables,” “psychological variables,” and “other variables”. Each variable was analyzed through different statistical methods, and the results will be reported according to what was obtained through them. Only robust results (i.e., observed in more than one study) will be reported in this section; therefore, those results obtained just one time will be reported only in Tables 2 and 3, while the main findings are reported in the 3 in the appendix.
3.2.1. Results Related to the Sociodemographic Variables
Gender was the most investigated variable of the sociodemographic group of variables (). Six studies () used the of Fisher to compare the gender groups, while 6 studies () used -test. Three studies () used Pearson’s to study the correlation between gender and gaming motivations. Three studies used multiple linear regression (), 2 reported the results by using the of Cohen (), and the last 3 used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling ().
Two studies confirmed that male players show higher results on intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, and external regulation [70, 116], with one study also affirming that males score higher on introjected regulation as well [70]. One study [43] found a significant gender effect only for external regulation motivation where female players of both social network gamers and MMO players reported higher levels if compared to males.
As for the other studies assessing gender related to motivations not related to the external and internal motivation framework of interpretation (other researchers used dimensions such as as competition and social), 6 studies found that, in general, males score higher than females in all or almost all game motivations [28, 29, 38, 47, 50, 54], even though Demetrovics et al. [22] found contradicting results showing that women tend to score higher on recreation, social, coping, fantasy, skill development, and escape except competition. In fact, 5 studies confirmed that female players tend to score higher than males on the relationship motivation [22, 25–27, 67], 3 studies found that females score higher on social motivation [22, 29, 47], 3 studies found that females score higher on escapism [22, 25, 67], and 2 on fantasy [22, 67]. The study made by Yee [26] found no gender differences regarding the social component, implying that male players socialize just as much as female players. Only 2 studies found that males score higher than females on escapism [36, 54]. Billieux et al. [71] found that women showed greater interest in discovery and exploration, at least in WoW. Yee [25] also observed that females had higher scores on immersion motivation.
Greenberg et al. [47] found that both sexes tend to play for competition and challenge purposes. 9 studies confirmed that male tend to score higher on the competition motivation [22, 26–28, 38, 39, 47, 67, 71], with the exception of Greenberg et al. [44] who found a peculiarity with 5th grade girls liking competition more than boys. To be more specific, 5th grader boys did not have any significant motives to play, while diversion was the strongest motivation for 8th, 11th grader boys, and male college students, and social interaction was the strongest motivation for 8th and 11th grader girls and female college students. Yee [25] observed that males score higher than females in manipulation and achievement motivation.
Moreover, Wu et al. [121] found that males scored higher on General Motivation but lower on Escape.
Ryan et al. [30] found the only significant difference in gender in intuitive controls where women scored lower than men.
Carlisle et al. [68] did not find gender as a significant predictor for immersion, but achievement and social motivation had a small negative relationship with gender.
The most important results regarding gender are summed up in Table 4.
The second most investigated sociodemographic variable was age (). 10 studies () used Pearson’s to study the correlation between age and gaming motivations. Two used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling (). Two studies used ANOVA (), and only one study used multiple linear regression () to assess the relations between age and gaming motivations.
Four studies found that gaming motivation tends to be stronger in younger samples [22, 28, 38, 47]. Two studies study found that age is positively associated with achievement [27, 68], while 3 studies found a negative correlation between age and achievement [25, 36, 105], even though for Yee, [25] only the age of male players was negatively correlated with achievement. Grinding [34] and advancement [71] were negatively correlated to age. Eight papers reported that age is negatively associated with social motivation or dimensions related to social aspects, such as social capital, team play, relationships, and social interaction [27, 34, 36, 38, 54, 67, 68, 105]. Regarding the immersion motivation, 2 studies found that they are not related to each other [27, 36], and only 2 study found a small negative relationship [25, 68]. As for escapism, 2 studies found negative correlations [54, 67], 1 that they were not correlated [34], and Wu et al. [121] were the only ones to find positive correlations.
Two studies found a positive correlation with autonomy [34, 69]. Yee [25] found that manipulation negatively correlated with the age of both female and male players.
The rest of the results are quite ambiguous, and this could be due to the motivations assessed, the game used as reference or the samples’ characteristics. Three studies found that age tends to have negative associations with all or almost all gaming motivations [34, 38, 67]; specifically, 4 studies found negative associations between age and competition [38, 47, 67, 71]. Age is negatively associated with fantasy [67], customization [34, 67], and role playing [38]. Only Wu et al. [121] found age to be positively correlated with fantasy. All the results are summarized in Table 5.
The third variable of this group is “Status/Occupation” as being a worker, a student, or being married or not, and it was analyzed by 4 papers. One used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling [68], one used -test to compare the different types of status [36], one used of Cohen [121], and the last one used ANOVA to compare groups [105]. The results are as follows: students tend to have higher scores in achievement motivations [68, 105]. Social motivation has a small negative relationship with the status student, while immersion motivation is not a significant predictor [68]. Students also have higher general motivation for playing if compared to employed people [121] and tend to have higher scores for the dissociation motivation [105]. Dauriat et al. [36] reported that people who work or study had greater scores on the relaxing motivation than those who do nothing.
The fourth element of this category was taken into consideration by only 3 studies (), and it is “type of gamer or self attitude towards being a gamer or not.” One study studied this relationship through -test [80], one used multiple linear regression [34], and one used MANCOVA [78]. Esport gamers have higher scores than recreational gamers in competition, social, and skill development motivations [122]. Hardcore players have higher scores in story, violent reward, escapism, social interaction, and autonomy scores while casual players only have higher score on loss-aversion and customization [34]. Argento et al. [116] also found that heavy gamers have higher scores in intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and extrinsic motivation.
3.2.2. Results Related to the Behavioural Variables
The most investigated variable of this group was “hours played per week” (), also called weekly gaming or gaming frequency. 18 studies () used Pearson’s to study the correlation between the hours played and gaming motivations, 8 () used linear regression to either study the correlations further or to see if gaming hours could be a predictor for certain gaming motivations, and finally, 2 () used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling.
Generally, 2 studies, which used the Self-Determination Theory as a framework [31, 72], confirmed positive correlations between introjected regulation, identified regulation, external regulation, integrated regulation, and intrinsic motivation with hours spent gaming [32, 85], except amotivation for Lafrenière et al. [32].
All the other studies assessed weekly gaming hours related to motivations by using a different framework (other researchers used dimensions such as as competition and social).
Three studies confirmed that weekly gaming hours have positive associations with competence, autonomy, and relatedness motivations [30, 69, 129].
Weekly gaming hours had positive associations with: social motivation () [26, 28, 36, 41, 92, 123], even though for Yee [26], this correlation was positive only in the female sample; competition () [26, 28, 71, 79, 92], to be noted that for Yee [26], this correlation was positive only for the male sample; escapism () [25, 26, 36, 71, 79, 123]; achievement () [26, 33, 36, 106]; relationship () [25, 26, 71, 79]; customization () [28, 71, 92]; advancement () [26, 71, 79]; mechanism () [26, 71, 79]; coping () [28, 41, 92]; dissociation () [33, 105]; fantasy () ([28]: [92]); cognitive development (n =2) [28, 92]; violent reward () [28, 92]; recreation () [28, 92]; habit () [36, 123]; moral motivations [123]; self-gratification [41]; engagement [45]; alleviation of boredom [69]; psychology detachment [69]; challenge [40]; immersion but only for males [26]; agency [123]; performance [123].
Weekly gaming hours had negative correlations with enhancement [41] and role playing [124]; regarding exploration, Fuster et al. [33] obtained a positive correlation with hours played per week, but in another study, they obtained a negative one [105].
Furthermore, Sherry et al. [29] used a stepwise linear regression to find which motivation was the best predictor for each sample they had. They found that the best predictors for college students and 11th graders were diversion, social interaction, and arousal; as for 8th graders, they were diversion and social interaction, while for 5th graders, it was the need to be strong and competition. López-Fernández et al. [28] did a similar procedure for their sample and found that the best predictors for their adolescent sample were coping and social interaction. The fact that there is a strong relation between social interaction and weekly gaming was also confirmed by other 3 studies [34, 92, 124]. Williams et al. [124] found that immersion, achievement, and sociability were significant positive predictors of weekly gaming. Furthermore, challenge [40] and habit [123] are positive predictors of weekly hours spent on playing. Hilgard et al. [34] found that the scores of players who spent more time playing were best predicted by story, violent reward, escapism, social interaction, and autonomy motivation, while the scores of people who play less were predicted by loss-aversion and customization motivations.
All the results regarding hours played weekly are summarized in Table 6.
The second most investigated variable was “daily playtime” (), meaning the average hours spent daily on a certain game or the average longest daily gaming session they had. Four studies Pearson’s to study the correlation between the daily hours and gaming motivations (), and 1 used Kendall’s tau, 1 () used MANOVA to compare players who spent different amounts of hours per day on the gaming activity and () also used linear regression to further study the correlations between the variables, and 1 explored these relation through a Structural Equation Modeling.
Three studies found that “daily playtime” had positive associations with social and relationship motivation [48, 75, 123], and 2 studies confirmed positive associations with autonomy, competence, and relatedness motives [46, 69]. Daily playtime is also positively correlated to enjoyment, alleviation of boredom, and psychological detachment [69]; habit, narrative, performance, agency, escapism, and moral [123]; fun and achievement [48].
Additionally, Osman & Çirak [70] compared people who played for less than two hours, people who played between 3 hours and 6 hours and people who played for more than 7 hours, and found that the groups that played for more than 7 hours had significantly higher scores on intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation, and they were also significantly less amotivated compared to other gamers.
The third most investigated variable was “years of playing” (). Two studies Pearson’s to study the correlation between the years spent playing games and gaming motivations (), 2 () used MANOVA to compare experienced players with less experienced players, and () used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling.
Positive associations between years of playing and mechanics motivation [71], exploration [33, 38], achievement [33], role playing [38], team play [38], mechanics [38], and narration motivations [38] were found. Klimmt et al. [39] compared hardcore playes of Travian with more moderated ones and found that hardcore players gave more importance to socializing and competition motives, while the difference for coping was less pronounced. Osman & Çirak [70] found, through a MANOVA, that players with more than four years of experience had significantly higher scores on intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation than those who played for just three years or even less.
The fourth most investigated variable was “playing or talking with other people” (), assessing all the actions of doing actions with other people or talking with them. Four studies Pearson’s to study the correlation between the actions of playing or talking with other people and gaming motivations (), and 1 used Kendall’s tau, 1 (, and one of these used linear regression to further study the correlations between the variables.
Azadvar & Canossa [46] found positive correlations between the time spent playing with a group of people and autonomy, competence, and relatedness motives. Frederik & Jan [123] found that playing with their partner, co-play, and talking with others positively correlated with habit and social motivation; the action of playing with people positively correlated with habit, social, performance, agency, escapism, and moral motives, except pastime and narrative. Hoffman & Nadelson [45] found that engagement positively correlated with playing with other people. Billieux et al. [71] correlated some specific behaviours of playing with others with gaming motivations, and they found that being affiliated with a guild correlated with higher scores on socializing, teamwork, and relationship motivations; Dauriat et al. [36] found positive correlation between playing with a group of people and achievement, socializing, and immersion motivation. In fact, people playing solo negatively correlated with the social motivation but positively with the immersion motivation.
The following three variables were analyzed each one by only two papers (). The first one is “time spent playing on weekends,” and it was assessed through Pearson’s (). One study of the two () also used linear regression. Time spent playing on weekends positively correlated with diversion and challenge [40], socialization, exploration, achievement, and dissociation [33].
The second variable is “Future intention of keep playing,” and it was assessed through an ANCOVA () and a multiple regression (). It was positively related to autonomy, competence, relatedness [30] and habit but negatively associated with social motivation [50].
The third variable is specific to a certain game, World of Warcraft, and is “behaviours shown by players in WoW”, and it was assessed through a linear regression (). Billieux et al. [71] found that the progression score shown in the game and related to various achievements is positively related to advancement, mechanics, relationship, and discovery motivations; quest and exploration achievements were positively related to discovery motivation; PvP achievements were positively related to competition, advancement, and mechanics motivations; dungeon and raid achievements were related to advancement, mechanics, relationships, and teamworks; miscellaneous achievement scores were positively related to advancement, mechanics, and discovery motivations, and lastly, some specific in game achievements was unrelated to role play, customization, and escapism. Yee et al. [27] found some contrasting results; achievement and social motivations were negative predictors of quests, exploration, and professions, with achievement being the only negative predictor for world events; both achievement and social motivation were positive predictors of dungeons; immersion was a positive predictors of doing quests and exploration, but it was a negative predictor of PvP and dungeons.
3.2.3. Results Related to the Psychological Variables
The most investigated variable of this cluster was “gaming addiction” (), often called with different names such as gaming problems, excessive gaming, gaming disorder, problematic video gaming, internet gaming disorder, disordered gaming, and excessive use. Eight studies () used linear regression to study which motivations can be considered predictors of gaming addiction, 7 () used Pearson’s to study the correlations between gaming addiction and gaming motivations, 6 studies used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling () to fit the relations between gaming addiction and gaming motivations inside a model, and, finally, 1 () used of Cohen.
Gaming addiction found positive associations between intrinsic motivation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, amotivation, and gaming addiction () [85, 125].
Results regarding other motivations not pertaining to the Self-Determination Theory as a framework [31, 72] were as follows. Gaming addiction had positive associations with as follows: escapism () ([36, 71, 76, 79, 92, 122, 136], [26, 121]); social motivation () [28, 36, 41, 68, 83, 92]; achievement () [36, 68, 83, 122], with Bányai et al. [122], finding it to be a positive predictor for both recreational and esport gamers; competition () [28, 71, 92, 122]; coping [28, 41, 92]; customization () [28, 71, 92], even though López-Fernández et al. [28] found this result only in their adolescent sample; recreation () [28, 92]; violent reward () [28, 92]; fantasy () [28, 92]; cognitive development () [28, 92]; violent reward () [28, 92]; self-gratification () [41]; enhancement () [41]; mechanics () [71]; role play () [71]; achievement () [36]; immersion () [133]; advancement () [26]; self-gratification () [41]; cognitive development () [92], mechanics () [79], and general motivation [121].
Negative associations of gaming addiction were as follows: social () [73, 133, 136]; fantasy () [92, 122], but this result was found only for recreational players as well in the study done by Bányai et al. [122]; coping () [122], but only for recreational players; competition () [92]; recreation () [92]; customizing () [28], but this result was found by López-Fernández et al. [28] only in the young adult sample and skill development [121]. All the results regarding gaming addiction are summarized in Table 7.
The second most investigated variable of this group is “personality.” Four studies () used Pearson’s to study the correlations between gaming motivations and personality, 3 () used linear regression to assess which personality trait can be considered a predictor of certain gaming motivations, and lastly, 2 study used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling ().
All the studies used the big five theory to assess personality traits which measure personality based on agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness.
Agreeableness associated positively with as follows: social interaction () [40, 92, 106]; fantasy () [40, 92]; competence/control [23]; the philanthropist type of player [44]; the socialiser type of player [44]; it associated negatively with as follows: competition [92]; cognitive development [92]; coping [92]; violent reward [92]; diversion [40]; arousal [40]; fantasy () [40, 92]; social interaction [92]; achievement motivation [106]; leadership motivation [106].
Neuroticism, also called emotional stability or instability, positively associated with as follows:. the achiever type of player [44]; cognitive development [92]; coping [92]; competition () (Graham & Gosling; [40]); social interaction [40]; diversion [40]; fantasy [40], arousal [40]; achievement [106]. It is negatively associated with presence [23], the free spirit type of player [44], and the disruptor type [44], and the immersion [106].
Openness to experience is positively associated with as follows: autonomy [23]; the philanthropist player type [44]; the free spirit type of player [44]; cognitive development [92] and competition [40]; challenge [40]; diversion [40]; socialization [106]; immersion [106]; leadership motivation [106]; independence motives [106]. It has negative associations with competition [92] and achievement [106].
Extraversion was positively associated with as follows: the philanthropist type of player [44]; the socialiser type of player and thus social motivation () [44, 68, 106]; the free spirit type of player [44]; competition [75]; leadership motivation [106]. It was negatively correlated with: coping [92] and diversion [40].
Finally, conscientiousness was positively associated with as follows: the philanthropist type of player [44]; the achiever type of player [44]; the player type of player [44]; customization [92] diversion [40]; leadership motives [106]. It has negative associations with as follows: competition [92]; coping [92]; social interaction [92]; violent reward [92]; diversion [40]; achievement [106]; immersion [106].
Scharkow et al. [38] was the only study to use a different instrument to assess personality, and they found that achievement seeking is positively predicted by competence, exploration, mechanics, and narration.
The variables that follow were assessed each one by just two papers. The first one is “loneliness” (). The 2 studies used Pearson’s to study the correlations between gaming motivations and personality and linear regression to assess the relations. Loneliness is positively associated with coping (Myrseth et al. [41], social and relationship motivation [41, 48], escapism [48], and nostalgia [48].
The second variable is “values” (). Scharkow et al. [38] found through a Structural Equation Model that the value of “collective orientation” is positively related to social capital, team play, and competition. Chang & Zang [55] found that the materialism value was a positive predictor of achievement, escape and virtual identification, entertainment, and reward through online gaming.
The third variable is “Need for cognition” () which is positively related to engagement [45], immersion, social, and achievement [51].
The fourth variable is “enjoyment”() which is positively related to autonomy ([52]; Ryan et al. [30], entertainment and flow motivations [52], competence, and relatedness [30].
3.2.4. Results Related to the Gaming Environment
This cluster of variables is a peculiar one that gathers all the variables that could not fit inside all the other clusters outlined before such as sociodemographic, behavioural, and psychological ones. This group contains the genre of the games assessed by the papers, the style of play chosen by the participants, the number of avatars that a player has, the gaming place where the activity is mainly done, the type of server used to play, and the physical health of the player playing the game.
The most investigated variable of this group was “Genre of game played” (). Four papers analyzed it by doing an ANOVA (), 2 papers used Pearson’s to study the correlations, 1 study did a linear regression, and 1 study used Path Analysis/Structural Equation Modeling.
Wohn et al. [43] found that people who play MMO games have higher intrinsic hedonic motivations, higher intrinsic accomplishment, higher social identified, and higher external game than players who played social network games. People who played social network games had higher external social and higher amotivation than people who played MMOs.
Fuster et al. [105] found that WoW players had higher scores on dissociations than those who played Aion and EVE online.
Scharkow et al., [38] found that playing for fantasy motivation had positive relationships with RPG, simulation games, adventure, and action but negative relationships with strategy, puzzle, sport games, platforms, and music games; competence had positive relationships with puzzle games and sport but negative ones with role playing and action; exploration had positive relationship with strategy, adventures, role playing, and platform games but negative ones with sport genre; social capital had positive relationship with strategy, puzzle, and role playing but negative ones with sport and music; team play had positive relationship with sport, platform, and action genre; competition had negative relationship with role playing and simulation but positive ones with sport and action; mechanics had positive relationship with sport, adventure, platform, simulation, and action genre, and lastly, narration has positive relations with strategy, puzzle, adventure, and role playing but negative ones with sport and action.
Johnson & Gardner [23] found that the experience of presence in games was the lowest for sport, simulation, and shooting games; moderate for action-adventure games; highest for strategy and role playing games. The experience of autonomy was lowest in action adventure games and shooting games, moderate for sport and simulation games, and highest for strategy and role playing games.
Ratan et al. [50] found that agency was positively associated with sport games, and pastime was positively associated with casual games and action games, while performance was associated with action games.
Kim [40] found positive correlations between traditional type of game and challenge and arousal; physical game-genre was positively correlated with competition, fantasy, and arousal; imagination game genre preference was positively correlated with competition, challenge, social interaction, fantasy, and arousal.
Lastly, López-Fernández et al. [28] studied game genres related to two specific samples: young adults and adolescence. They found that in the adolescent sample, shooter games positively correlated with recreation, competition, cognitive development, coping, social interaction, violent reward, and fantasy; MOBA games positively correlated with competition, cognitive development, and social interaction; MMORPG positively correlated with fantasy; role playing positively correlated with recreation and fantasy; action adventure positively correlated with cognitive development, coping, customization, and fantasy; sport games positively correlated with violent reward and competition but negatively with customization; social simulation negatively correlated with competition, cognitive development, coping, social interaction, and violent reward but positive with customization; construction positively correlated with customization and fantasy; platform games negatively correlated with competition, coping, social interaction, and violent reward. While, they found the following correlations in the young adult sample, the shooter genre positively correlated with recreation, cognitive development, coping, social interaction, violent reward, customization, and fantasy but not competition; MOBA positively correlated with recreation, competition, and social interaction; strategy is negatively correlated with violent reward; MMORPG is positively correlated with recreation, competition, coping, social , and fantasy; action-adventure game is positively correlated with recreation, cognitive development, coping, violent reward, and fantasy; sport genre is positively correlated with competition and violent reward; casual genre is negatively correlated with recreation, competition, social interaction, violent reward, customization, and fantasy; social simulation positively correlated with customization and fantasy but negatively with social interaction; fighting genre positively correlated with violent reward.
The second most investigated variable was investigated by only 2 papers, and it was “style of play” (). Wu et al. [121] found that those who primarily played single-player games had a higher score on coping but a lower score on competition, social, and general motivation than those who primarily played MMO games. Dauriat et al. [36] correlated style of play (playing PvP, playing solo, playing PvE, role playing, or playing in groups) and found that achievement positively correlated with playing PvP, socializing negatively correlated with playing solo but positively correlated with playing in a group, and immersion positively correlated with playing in a group, playing solo, playing PvE, and role playing.
3.2.5. Risk of Biases
All the risk of biases detected are reported in Table 3. All the 53 studies included presented a sampling bias due to various reasons: 21 studies recruited their samples online through forums or other platforms, while 32 were highly specific and focused their investigation on a targeted nation, even though one study compared three nations [50]; 28 studies had more male participants than females; 1 study only had only female participants [138]; 3 were lacking male players; 8 focused their results only on MMORPG players; 4 specifically targeted World of Warcraft players, 5 papers focused on MMO players, with one specifically comparing MMO players with social network gamers [43]; the study done by Carlisle et al. [68] also lacked of randomization factors. The fact that some papers were specifically targeting some games or countries can lead to a lack of generalizability of the obtained results. Considering that all 53 studies used self-reported questionnaires, all of them might have been affected by a response bias due to the nature of the instruments per se. Furthermore, 2 studies [33, 34] received random response to their questionnaires. 23 papers had a reporting bias since they had to discard some of them, and not all the cases were reported. 13 papers presented a measurement bias: (1) Lafrenière et al. [32] did not report the specific value of each dimensions’ Cronbach’s alpha; (2) Tekofsky et al. [67] created an ad hoc scale by compiling items from already assessed instrument, but they did not report the Cronbach’s alpha for each dimensions; (3) Scharkow et al. [38] created an ad hoc questionnaire, but one of the dimensions (exploration-ego centered motives) had only one item, thus resulting in Cronbach’s alpha of one; (4) Dindar [75] proposed the construct of “gamer loyalty” as an attitude variable and not as behavioural one; (5) Ratan et al. [50] measured two constructs only through one item; (6) Kim [40] created a scale to measure preference of games, and this scale had low alphas; (7) the questionnaire used by Willians et al. [124] had an alpha of .62 for the immersion factor which would be considered insufficient if we would interpret this with the European Federation of Psychologists’ Association’s [27] criteria, which says that a Cronbanch’s alpha is acceptable only if above .70; (8) Dauriat et al. [36] did not report the Cronbach’s alpha for each dimensions of their scale; (9) McCauley et al. [52] created an ad hoc questionnaire that needs further validation; (10) Fuster et al. [33] used an ad hoc instrument that needs further validation; (11) Tondello et al. [44] used a short version of their scale, and it could have problems with acquiescence, also the scale needs further validation, and the player dimension had a Cronbanch’s alpha of .698, which is insufficient according to EFPA [139]; (12) Azadvar & Canossa [46] measured some behavioural variables through a recording system, so the obtained data could have been affected by external factors; (13) the ad hoc questionnaire created by Yee [25] to measure MMORPG motivations had three dimensions with insufficient alphas [139]: .63 for immersion, .62 for escapism, and.67 for achievement. Lastly, 3 papers also had a statistical bias due to the fact that one questionnaire was based on an already existent one [41]; Frederik & Jan had a really small sample which could lead to a type II error; Ratan et al. [50] underlines that there might have been a type I of error due to the unequal sample size in doing the ANOVA calculations.
4. Discussion
The primary objective of this PRISMA systematic review was to present the main results obtained in literature pertaining to gaming motivation not related to psychopathology symptoms specifically. Aside from some main topics that are often analyzed or discussed, the literature exhibits either contradictory results or results that should be investigated more. To summarize, the most investigated variables are gender, age, gaming frequency, gaming addiction, and personality.
The current literature has mainly observed that males have higher gaming motivation than females [28, 29, 39, 47, 50, 54], and they seemed to play principally to compete [22, 26–28, 38, 39, 47, 67, 71], while females seemed to play for social reasons [22, 29, 47] or relationship purposes [22, 25–27, 67]. This is in line with Bales’ Theory [140] that females are more relationship-oriented while males are more task-oriented. Gaming motivation appears to be stronger in younger people [22, 28, 34, 36, 38, 67, 68, 105, 121], and they mainly play for social reasons [34, 36, 38, 54, 67, 68]. There is to note two things: (1) studies addressing more adult players, with a mean of age of more than 35 years, are still lacking [38, 43, 69]; (2) positive correlations between some gaming motivation and age were observed just in a few of these studies [28, 67, 71, 121] and thus may need further research and exploration.
In general, it appears that video gamers tend to spend more hours on video games to satisfy their needs of social interaction ([25, 28, 29, 34, 36, 41, 48, 92, 123, 124, 26]), competition13 ([28, 71, 92, 26, 79]), escapism25 ([25, 36, 71, 79, 123, 26]), achievement1 [26, 33, 36, 106], autonomy7 [46, 69], competence12 [46, 69], and relatedness58 [46, 69].
Notably, non-addicted players and problematic ones appeared to play for almost the same gaming motivations, meaning escapism ([36, 71, 76, 79, 92, 122, 136, 26]), social [28, 36, 41, 68, 83, 92], and achievement reasons [36, 68, 83, 122] are the only difference being coping as a motivation for addicted players [28, 41, 92]. These results seem coherent with the idea that people tend to obsessively play video games to not think about their daily problems (i.e., escapism25), to not miss some social aspect or to interact with some other people (i.e., social motivation65), to cope with their feelings or mood states (i.e., coping15), and lastly, simply because they want to achieve something that probably require lots of time to be spent in that game (i.e., achievement1). This means that the relationship between gaming motivation and gaming addiction could be null in the end. Therefore, future research should directly compare problematic and nonproblematic gamers more in depth to identify possible differences in terms of motivations [141]. Lastly, papers addressing the relation between personality and gaming motivation were only 6, and the only results supported by more than one paper were that agreeableness positively correlated with fantasy28 [40, 92] and social interaction65 [40, 92], even though 2 papers [40, 92] also concluded that agreeableness is a negative predictor of fantasy28. All the other results were discovered just by one paper, hence implicating that this particular topic needs more research.
This systematic review provides support to different theories already present in literature, the first one being the Self-Determination Theory (SDT; [72]) and the second one the Use and Gratification Theory applied to media (UGT; [29, 142]). According to the SDT, people play video games because of intrinsic or extrinsic motivations to satisfy some basic psychological needs that all people have, namely, the need for competence, relatedness, and autonomy [30]. It appears that video games are now able to satisfy those needs thanks to their improvements not only in terms of potential gameplay but also in terms of real time connections with people. As seen in this systematic review, the most common reasons to play appear to be competition for males and social for females. Both of these reasons support the theory that gamers, but also casual people, tend to play to satisfy their need of feeling competent (e.g., through competition with other players) and to feel connected to other people (e.g., by developing social relationship through a common interest), which are also both fundamental basic human needs according to Maslow’s theory [57]. Moreover, apparently, there is a common ground in what pushes people to play that is independent from psychopathological aspects. In fact, addicted and nonaddicted gamers play for almost the exact same reasons as shown by this systematic review. It is probably that there are some moderators that determine whether a person is prone to develop pathological behaviours or not. Notably, with our findings, we also support the UGT, which states that people can use technology to keep satisfying their needs within a society that keeps changing rapidly and developing not only in the real context but also in parallel in a virtual world. In fact, as shown by Sherry et al. [29], which were the first to apply UGT to video games, all respondents report to play for mainly two reasons: (a) competition and (b) social reasons. These results were largely confirmed throughout literature (e.g., [26, 28, 92]). It is also not surprising that these motivations are the most supported ones given the fact that human beings have always compared themselves to others [143], and this appears to be true in virtual settings as well.
4.1. Potential Impact and Future Perspectives
This PRISMA systematic review has the merit to put together a lot of heterogeneous literature regarding gaming motivation by outlining some connections that might have been missed given the fact that same constructs may have different names in literature. This overview could be helpful for different purposes: (a) it is found that there is no difference between addicted and nonaddicted players in terms of gaming motivation. It is known that motivation is the most important key in treatment, and clinical researcher could use these information to use videogames as a way to promote a healthy lifestyles, to reduce stress [144], to increase physical activity in sedentary people [145, 146], for educational purposes by learning useful information [147, 148], or for therapy with children with special educational needs, ADHD, or neurodevelopmental disorder [149, 150]. As stated, motivation is strictly related to age and gender; thus, this systematic review could help in identifying which games with which characteristics could be helpful for the target population. This implies that some games can be considered more engaging and thus can have a stronger impact; (b) game companies are always interested in knowing which reasons lead people to play video games. Gamers spend lots of hours in playing certain video games because through this activity, they can satisfy some of their basic psychological needs [30]. This activity can easily become pathological, and companies can use gaming motivation knowledge to create dedicated checking systems to avoid detrimental effects due to excessive screen time, such as lacking of attention [151] or sleep deprivation [152]. Furthermore, gaming motivation can be the needed bases to develop video games and gamification aspects that can be used for training purposes [12] or for HR processes [153, 154]; (c) it is the first systematic review to focus on nonpathological reasons and thus giving an overview of why gamers (addicted or not) play video games. These could be helpful to compare both groups of these groups and understand their differences on common gaming motivation [141]. Clinicians could use the knowledge of the current literature to develop better treatments based on gender, age, and culture. Female and male gamers play in fact for entirely different reasons, and a generalized treatment can not possibly work well on whatever patient. Also, future research should strive to investigate and include female players more since the majority of the studies consisted of mainly male players; (d) gaming motivation can be studied related to some relatively new possible work careers that are taking over the entertainment sector such as Esport. Esports are a really competitive sector, and it requires hours and hours of training to achieve great performances in tournaments. This implies that there might the need to further investigate how constructs such as self-esteem [155], work-related stress [156], burnout [156], or general mattering [157] might be related to gaming motivation in pursuing this type of work; (e) can be useful to build a possible future questionnaire that tries to integrate most of the gaming motivation found. It reported most of the existent instruments (ad hoc instruments included) in literature right now to measure gaming motivation and thus giving an overview of all the gaming motivation thought and investigated as a whole. The fact that the literature is so heterogeneous makes it hard to have results that can be compared or connected to the same theoretical point of view. Many researchers decided to create an ad hoc instrument instead of using the most adopted standards (e.g., GAMS, PENS, MPOGQ, and MOGQ), implying that the already created scales were not suitable for measuring what they wanted. Thus, the conclusion of some studies can be considered as stand alone but still informative. It also shows that researchers are having hard time in having a point of reference; thus, the need to put them all together shows that there is a sort of common thread on which we can work on and further develop so that we can actually compare those results. Some researchers are giving different names to basically the same constructs (e.g., skill development and cognitive development). This means that, while searching in literature, some papers will be missed and not included in other researches, and comparisons will be hard to do if searched by keywords. There is not a paper that tried to put together all the results about gaming motivation but also paid attention to this note. This PRISMA would allow other researchers to see if there are strong associations between game-related variables and other dimensions (e.g., gender and coping, whereas coping was called differently in some papers). Furthermore, it is interesting to put together all the gaming motivation papers since many focused on specific genres, but nowadays, games are also becoming more mixed, and thus, through this PRISMA systematic review, researchers could find a common pattern that could be interesting to investigate on games in general, without relying too much on a specific pattern.
Considering what has been said up to now, it is safe to say that there is a lot to discover and deepen about this topic, albeit what has been found is, without doubt, vital to keep the research going.
Data Availability
Data is not applicable since it is a review, and all the articles selected are presented in the appendix section.
Disclosure
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Endnotes
Glossary of gaming motivation: 1Achievement: it refers to dominance, leadership, prestige, and achievement of goals [33]. 2Achiever: players motivated by competence. Their motivation to play is to seek progress within a system by completing tasks or to prove themselves by tackling difficult challenges [44]. 3Advancement: the desire to gain power, progress rapidly, and accumulate in-game symbols of wealth and status [26]. 4Agency: refers to the expectations of the player regarding their ability to play the game according to their preferences [35]. 5Amotivation: the relative absence of motivation either intrinsic or extrinsic [158]. Individuals do not perceive contingencies between their actions and the outcomes of their actions. For example, players may have had good reasons to play but now persist despite not perceiving any reasons for doing so [32]. 6Arousal: a frequently stated reason for playing video games is to stimulate emotions [29]. 7Autonomy: the degree to which participants felt free and perceived opportunities to do activities that interest them [30]. 8Boredom: play games to relieve boredom, to fill time and to relax [69]. 9Challenge: players enjoy playing video games to push themselves to a higher level of skill or personal accomplishment; the desire to solve puzzles in order to get to the next level or beat the game [29]. 10Cognitive development: intellectual activity stimulation during video game play [28]. 11Community: play games in order to be part of a community and to interact with others [38]. 12Competence: player’s perception of the game providing a challenging but not overwhelmingly difficult experience and enhanced efficacy [30]. 13Competition: the desire to challenge and compete with others [26]; motives of competing with and defeating others in order to feel a sense of achievement [22]. 14Concentration: the feeling of total absorption that leads the gamer to totally ignore or forget their surroundings. It is similar to the experience of flow [37, 54]. 15Coping: using games to help coping with real problems (stress, aggression, and anxiety) and managing unpleasant moods and unwanted impulses [22]; playing for stress-reduction and mood enhancement [28]. 16Completion: interest in performing every possible action in a game or collecting every in-game item [34]. 17Customization: having an interest in customizing the appearance of their character [26]; interest in-game creative pursuits like personalizing an in-game avatar or building a house [34]. 18Discovery: finding and knowing things that most other players do not know about [26]. 19Disruptor: players motivated by the triggering of change. Their motivation to play is to disrupt the system either directly or through others to force negative or positive changes [44]. 20Dissociation: refers to identification with the avatar, and with evasions of, or escaping from, reality [33]. 21Diversion: games used to avoid stress or responsibilities, to fill time, relax, escape from stress, or because there is nothing else to do [29]. 22Ego: motivation is related to aspects of the self, like playing to be strong [47]. 23Enhancement: internal, positive reinforcement (e.g., increase in positive emotions) [41]. 24Entertainment: playing because it is exciting, it is fun, and it is interesting [37, 54]. 25Escape/escapism: using the online environment to avoid thinking about real life problems [26]; escaping from reality, especially problems of the real world [22]. 26Exploration: discovery of the game, its history, and the various phenomena that occur within the game [33]; enthusiasm for games with many choices, options, multiple solutions of puzzles, and open areas to explore [34]. 27External regulation: behaviour regulated through external means such as rewards [32]. 28Fantasy: stepping out of one’s usual identity, trying new identities in a different fantasy world, and trying things that one cannot do in real life [22]; playing for the immersion in the gaming world and the story’s in-game characters [28]. 29Free spirit: players motivated by autonomy. Their motivation to play is to express themselves and act without external control to explore and create within a system [44]. 30General motivation: a general factor subsuming all the other motivations [121]. 31Grinding: attitudes toward performing repetitive actions or playing real-life money to earn in-game rewards [34]. 32Habit: refers to media use that is not active. It concerns starting to play games without really thinking about it [35]. 33Hi-tech: the motivation to play video games is because they look cool [47]. 34Identified regulation: people engage in a behaviour based on its perceived meaning or its relation to personal goals [159] even if the activity is not pleasant in itself. For example, players might play because it has personal meaning or in order to help achieve other personal goals, such as developing/maintaining friendships [32]. 35Immersion: play to enjoy being part of a fantasy world as well as being someone else [25]. 36Integrated regulation: engaging in an activity out of choice. However, such choice is not simply limited at the activity level but is now a coherent part of the organization of the self. That is, the regulation becomes part of a person’s habitual functioning and part of the person’s sense of self. Thus, players who play because it is aligned with other life goals, such as becoming a game designer [32]. 37Intrinsic accomplishment: one’s feeling of pleasure when improving one’s own performance [43]. 38Intrinsic motivation: it defines players who play because they enjoy exploring the game universe and improving their skill levels or because they like the thrill and strong sensation the game provides [32]. 39Intrinsic hedonic: the pure sense of enjoyment coming from playing [43]. 40Introjected regulation: regulation of the behaviour through internal pressures such as anxiety and guilt, and, thus, implies partial internalization. For example, players who play because if they did not, they would be irritable or restless [32]. 41Intuitive controls: participants’ experiences of the interface that controls their character’s actions in the virtual environment [30]. 42Learning: playing video games to learn new skills, new things, to improve, and because it makes the players think [37, 54]. 43Loss-aversion: tendency of a loss to frustrate or to “spoil the fun”. Likely, subsumes search for challenge [34]. 44Low-cost: it refers to the motivation of playing games that require low effort to get started and/or are flexible to use (time/location) [39]. 45Manipulation: how much inclined a user is to objectify other users and manipulate them for his personal gain and satisfaction [25]. 46Mechanics: having an interest in analyzing the underlying rules and system in order to optimize character performances [26]. 47Moral self reaction: expectations resulting from comparing playing digital games with own, social, or moral norms [35]. 48Narration: it refers to the topic and story of the game [38]. 49Narrative: composed by believability, the expectation about coherence and believability of the game environment, and involvement, the expectation about involvement with aspects of the game world [35]. 50Pastime: the expectation to kill time when playing [35]. 51Performance: the expectation to perform well when playing digital games [35]. 52Philanthropist: players motivated by purpose. Their motivation to play is to help others without expecting a reward [44]. 53Player: players motivated by the extrinsic rewards. Their motivation to play is to earn rewards within a system, independently of the type of the activity [44]. 54Presence: sense of immersion in the gaming world [30]. 55Psychological detachment: a subdimension of alleviation from stress, similar to zoning out [69]. 56Realism: playing because the game world, its characters, and/or story feel like the real world [47]. 57Recreation: refers to recreational and relaxing aspects of online games [22]. 58Relatedness: the feeling of connection that participants feel to other players in the game [30]; the concept of social belonging [46]. 59Relationship: the desire to form long-term meaningful relationships with others [26]. 60Relaxing: the game as a means of relaxing and a source of “exciting entertainment” [36]. 61Role-playing: creating a persona with a background story and interacting with other players to create an improvised story [26]. 62Self-gratification: motivation related to the act of indulging/satisfying one’s own desires [41]. 63Skill development: refers to people playing games in order to improve their coordination, concentration, or other skills [22]. 64Sociability: the expectation to enact non-competitive social behaviour when playing [35]. 65Social/Socializing/Social Interaction: having an interest in helping and chatting with other players [26]; the pleasure of getting to know people, being with others, and playing together with other persons [22]. 66Social capital: play to make new friends or to get to know new people [38]. 67Socializer: players motivated by relatedness. Their motivation to play is to interact with others and create social connections [44]. 68Social external regulation: reinforcement received from other players within the game (similar to the external regulation of physical activity behaviours) [43]. 69Status: the expectation of being respected by other players [35]. 70Story: whether game stories are important, engaging, and emotionally compelling [34]. 71Teamplay: play games to play at the same time with other players and/or to simply play with other people [38]. 72Teamwork: deriving satisfaction from being part of a group effort [26]. 73Violence catharsis: whether game violence is perceived to help harmlessly release negative moods or aggression [34]. 74Violent reward: whether game violence provides positive or thrilling emotions such as satisfaction or power [34]; gratification obtained via in-game violence [28].