issue 1 09 - APS Member Groups - Australian Psychological Society

Excessive Videogame Playing64Despite this literature that highlights theimportance of the social and structural featuresin video game playing, there have been fewpublished studies which examine the role ofthese factors in excessive video game playing.This qualitative study set out to examinein greater detail how individuals becomeexcessively involved in video games, byexploring the relationship between player,video game machine and the social context ofplayer-machine interaction. It was hoped thatthis approach would enable a broad andcoherent explanation for the phenomena ofexcessive video game playing, particularly inrelation to the structural characteristics ofvideo games, the video game player and thewider social network of players.MethodParticipantsSeven semi-structured group interviewswere conducted (three groups of fourparticipants and four groups ranging from threeto eight participants in size). The total samplewas 38 participants, including 23 adolescents(15 males, 8 females) and 15 adults (11 males,4 females). The mean age of the adolescentgroup was 16.2 years (SD=0.7) and the meanage of the adult group was 30.4 years(SD=6.7). In terms of video game play, theadolescent group reported playing between 3and 40 hours per week (M=14.5, SD=12.3)and the adult group reported playing between 2to 35 hours per week (M=18.1, SD=11.2). Byconducting the interviews in small groups,participants felt comfortable discussing theirexperiences playing video games. Previouswork has noted that group interviews mayminimise any perceived power imbalancebetween researcher and participants (Wood &Griffiths, 2002).MaterialsA pilot interview study was carried outusing four adult video game players. Theseplayers’ input assisted in the construction of agroup interview protocol, including thedevelopment of a set of interview questions(see Appendix). These questions weredesigned to enquire about players’ motivationsfor playing video games, including whatfeatures of games were attractive or rewarding,and what characteristics of video games wouldkeep them playing in a typical playing session.These general questions led into a discussion ofexcessive video game playing behaviour. Giventhe participants’ broad range of experienceswith video games, participants were encouragedto discuss related areas that they considered tobe of relevance to the question. The interviewprotocol was flexible enough to accommodateresponses that deviated from interviewquestions. Prior to taking part in the study, allparticipants were asked to fill out a shortquestionnaire concerning the frequency of theirvideo game playing. The audio of all groupinterviews was recorded.ProcedureAdolescent participants were obtained bycontacting the principal and secondarypsychology teacher of a high school in aregional city. Three classes of students wereselected for participation in the study. An adultsample was obtained by word of mouth requestsat a local non-business internet gaming group.Interviews were conducted in a separate room atthe gaming venue. Given that this study wasconcerned with video game-related experiences,potential participants were checked foreligibility to participate by employing thescreening question: “Do you consider yourself agamer?”. A ‘gamer’ is a commonly used termfor a person who plays video games. The meanreported amount of experience playing videogames was 11.7 years (SD=7.7), so thisscreening method appeared to be successful.Food and drink refreshments were provided forall participants following the interview.Establishing rapport was a critical part ofthe data collection process, especially wheninterviewing the adolescent participants. Toensure that all participants felt comfortable,there was a brief period of friendly conversation(approximately five minutes) prior to theinterviews. The first researcher being a ‘gamer’helped to make participants feel moreThe Australian Community Psychologist Volume 21 No 1 June 2009