Gamers’ gratifications and continuous intention to play eSports: the mediating role of gamers’ satisfaction-a PLS-SEM and NCA study

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between different hedonic (e.g. enjoyment and escapism) and utilitarian (e.g. achievement and challenge) gratifications and continuous intention to play eSports, considering the mediating role of gamer’s satisfaction. Uses and Gratification theory (U&G) has been employed as the study’s theoretical framework. Design/methodology/approach: The present study used a survey research method and a self-administered questionnaire to collect the data. The data was gathered on-site from students of three universities in Pakistan’s Islamabad and Rawalpindi regions. Study respondents involved people from Gen Z and Gen Y aged between 18 to 25 and 26 to 40. A total of 401 responses were evaluated using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA). Findings: The PLS-SEM findings evidence that eSports players’ hedonic (e.g. enjoyment and escapism) and utilitarian (e.g. challenge) gratification positively impact gamers’ satisfaction, which subsequently drives eSports gamers’ continuance intention behavior. Furthermore, gamers’ satisfaction positively mediated the relationship between gratifications (e.g. enjoyment and escapism refer to hedonic, whereas achievement and challenge represent utilitarian) and continuance intentions. NCA on eSports gamers’ satisfaction and continuance intention identified critical predictive factors. The analysis revealed that only enjoyment is necessary for predicting satisfaction. Interestingly, NCA results also indicated that enjoyment, achievement, escapism, challenge and satisfaction are all necessary for predicting eSports gamers’ continuance intention. Originality/value: This study investigates the mediating role of eSports gamers’ satisfaction between gamers’ perceived gratifications (i.e. enjoyment, escapism, achievement, challenge) and their continuous intention to play in the Pakistani context. More importantly, we employ a multi-method approach (e.g. a combined approach of PLS-SEM with NCA) to determine the sufficient and necessary conditions of the outcome variable comprising satisfaction and continuous intention.