.

Our results show that perceived value of virtual goods had a positive predictive effect on willingness toconsume virtual goods in online mobile games. Further, intention to use virtual goods played a mediatingrole in this predictive effect: When game players perceived the value of virtual goods, their intention to usethem was enhanced (Huang, 2018; Jung & Lee, 2018). Previous researchers have found that willingness toconsume increases when gamers have a higher intention to use online game products (Hamari & Keronen,2017). Therefore, gaming companies should pay more attention to the role of virtual goods, and meetplayers’ needs when they are designing virtual goods in online mobile games. Further, gaming companiescould consider providing free or limited-time free virtual goods to improve gamers’ intention to use them,and to increase willingness to consume virtual goods in online mobile games.

We determined the internal reliability of the scale by calculating Cronbach’s alpha values, which were .89for the Willingness to Buy Scale, .82 for the Perceived Value Scale, .86 for the Intention to Use Scale, and .75for the Extraversion Scale. As all values were over .70, the measures had acceptable internal reliability.Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis results are shown in Table 1. The results show that perceivedvalue, willingness to consume, and intention to use were significantly and positively correlated with oneanother.

Measures

Many software applications (apps) have been developed to allow various services to satisfy the daily needs ofusers. This trend has resulted in the dramatic expansion of the online gaming market in recent years,regarding both market size and the number of gamers (Park & Lee, 2011). The number of mobile phones inChina reached 823 million in December 2019 (J.-Y. Kim & Lee, 2020), which means it provides a stableenvironment for mobile gaming market development. As a form of entertainment, mobile games are notlimited by time or space: They are different from computer and traditional ball games that require venues orlarger devices. Therefore, they have gradually entered into public life. According to a report by NikoPartners, the number of regular players of online mobile games has already reached 630 million in China,representing a market share of 181.7 billion yuan (Lei, 2020). Gamers invest their time in gaming, butrecently they have begun to invest money as well; for example, global players spent $6 billion on mobilegames in August 2020 (Molinillo et al., 2020).

Regarding aggression, we found that both life and game self-efficacy were irrelevant in predicting aggression. One possible explanation we offer is that there are several other factors that affect these attributes, such as dispositional traits, social context, and some moderating or mediating factors that we did not investigate, including players’ dispositional traits and social environments.

It is possible that in cyberspace, those players in our study with higher game self-efficacy and who experienced depression and loneliness were more engaged in gaming than were those players who were strong in life self-efficacy. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that because of the discrepancies between online gaming and reality, the players feel compelled to compensate for these by engaging in behaviors aimed at increasing their positive emotions (Moss, 2009). On the basis of our results, it seemed to us that players with strong game self-efficacy were more vulnerable to adverse experiences than were players with a strong life self-efficacy.

Measures

The average daily gaming time for the total sample was 106.56 minutes (SD = 20.1): 114.60 minutes (SD = 21.7) for males and 100.78 minutes (SD = 19.0) for females. The average for coping life self-efficacy was 3.18 (SD = 0.63) and for social life self-efficacy was 3.49 (SD = 0.53). The average for coping game self-efficacy was 2.57 (SD = 0.89) and for social game self-efficacy it 2.17 (SD = 0.88).

In conclusion, the results we obtained revealed that life self-efficacy had greater effects in reducing depression and loneliness among players via preferred game playing. We are the first researchers to attempt to investigate how life and game self-efficacy affect problematic psychosocial factors of players of online games. In future research, it is important to verify our findings via different procedures, such as experimental designs and longitudinal studies, in order to identify players’ psychosocial factors. Further, it is important to investigate the potential benefits of online gaming because of the dramatically changing nature of the games, which are becoming increasingly more realistic and social

One possible explanation for previous outcomes in terms of gaming enjoyment and mood regulation effects, is that perceptions and experiences of gaming may differ according to the individuals’ intentions toward their needs. Real factors that may be related to these perceptual tendencies among players are therapeutic goals, such as relieving depression and loneliness, and reducing aggression. Findings in research along the lines of this assumption show that some online games may alleviate dysphoria and sadness associated with depression (Rieger, Wulf, Kneer, Frischlich, & Bente, 2014). Furthermore, researchers have shown benefits from using online gaming as a tool, such as being able to avoid depression and stress (Reinecke et al., 2012).