Gamers’ subjective Well-Being: the role of Peripheral and Core elements of eSporst Videogame Addiction

This study aims to examine the complex relations between videogame addiction and gamers’ subjective well-being in esports. It deconstructs the positive effect of the peripheral dimension (high engagement elements) of videogame addiction on gamers’ subjective well-being as well as the negative effect of core dimensions (problematic use) in eSports. We collected 219 valid responses from eSports gamers and employed Smart-PLS 3.3.2 to examine the relationships between the study variables. The findings indicate that the peripheral dimensions of eSports videogame addiction (i.e., mood modification and salience) positively influence the gamer’s subjective wellbeing, whereas, the core dimensions (i.e., withdrawal and conflict) negatively influence gamers’ subjective well-being. This study is novel in the sense that it extends the theoretical perspective of gamers’ subjective well-being by studying the positive role of peripheral elements and the negative role of core elements of eSports Videogame addiction. Lastly, we derive theoretical and practical implications from our findings.