@article{aup:/content/journals/10.5117/2011.039.001.044, author = "De Vocht, Melanie and Van Looy, Jan and Courtois, Cédric and De Marez, Lieven", title = "Sociaal contact in een MMORPG", journal= "Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap", year = "2011", volume = "39", number = "1", pages = "", doi = "https://doi.org/10.5117/2011.039.001.044", url = "https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/2011.039.001.044", publisher = "Amsterdam University Press", issn = "1875-7286", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "MMORPG,online games,gamer segmentation,game motivations", abstract = "Social contact in a MMORPG. An exploratory study into the motivations of playing World of Warcraft from a uses & gratifications perspective. Social contact in a MMORPG. An exploratory study into the motivations of playing World of Warcraft from a uses & gratifications perspective. The results of a study on motivations for playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), c.q. World of Warcraft (WoW), on 1691 gamers have been described in this article. The research hypothesis states that the social contact in-game is the main motivation of playing WoW. After a factor analysis, eight motivations can be defined: ‘escapism’ (α= 0,694), ‘arousal’(α= 0,573), ‘social contact in WoW’ (α= 0,794), ‘challenge’ (α= 0,758), ‘immersion’ (α= 0,765), ‘skills’ (α= 0,907), ‘social contact in real life’ (α= 0,739), ‘strong competition’ (α= 0,771). ‘Social contact in WoW’ ends on the third place. Still, 89% of the respondents think that the multiplayer aspect is important. Two other dimensions have been found: ‘character identification’ (α= 0,749) and ‘character importance’ (α= 0,826). By distinguishing a group ‘High Character Involvement’ and ‘Low Character Involvement’ there have been found interesting differences with regard to the motivations. ", }