The Comparative Self: Understanding the Motivation to Play and the Subsequent Video Game Use

The study investigates whether a fluid, context-dependent self-concept, grounded in Social Identity Approach theory, explains video game motivation and use better than the static Big Five personality model. Motivated by industry figures of over 2.2 billion players and $108.9 billion in 2017 revenue, the research tests hypotheses linking immersion, achievement, and social motivations to play, and linking both personality traits and self-concept dimensions to those motivations and to actual use.

The core empirical work draws on a cross-sectional survey of 236 mostly male players with an average age of 33, complemented by a structural equation model. Results favor the self-concept framework: the context-specific self-concept explained roughly 30% of the variance in video game use, compared with 25% for the Big Five, and fit indices were stronger. Social motivation emerged as the one motivation type that significantly predicted use (β = .29, p < .001), while the ability dimension of self-concept was the strongest predictor of immersion motivation and of use itself. Big Five traits, particularly openness and conscientiousness, showed direct effects, but support for the hypothesized motivation pathways was only partial.

The authors interpret these findings as evidence that self-concept provides a richer, context-sensitive account of player behavior than stable personality traits. They temper this conclusion by acknowledging weak performance of the measurement instrument on certain dimensions and the cross-sectional design's inability to establish causality. The concluding discussion argues for a more holistic explanation of play and proposes future research into how the comparative character of player identity, and its meaningfulness to players, shapes engagement with games.