(A) study on the relation between community activities using discord and game play intention

Abstract

Social interaction affects players' game experience and game play intention. Recent online games have developed in a direction that encourages social interaction, which leads to the development and use of third-party communication platforms such as Discord. However, there is a lack of studies that consider games and platforms as an integrated system and instead analyze the experiences that occur within them individually. In this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 players (20-34, average 24.9) who play Lost Ark and actively use Discord to confirm the relationship between shared game and Discord usage experience and game play intention. As a result of analyzing the results of in-depth interviews with using the thematic analysis, it was found that players add fun to games, satisfy social needs, and diversify their reasons for playing games through Discord. This study confirmed that players create new shared experiences by connecting shared community activities and shared game activities on third-party communication platforms, and that these activities lead to game play intentions. We anticipate that this study can serve as a stepping stone for future work in in understanding players’ game play continuation intention and in-game purchase intention.