This study aims to comprehensively investigate the relationships between mass gamers’ video game experience and their decision-making regarding amateur esports participation, considering both psychological and functional aspects of the video game experience. An online questionnaire-based survey yielded 204 valid responses from US gamers who frequently played League of Legends over the last six months. The study utilised a configurational approach with fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to assess the proposed conceptual model and test the related propositions. The research identified three video game experience configurations associated with a high intention to engage in amateur esports and four video game experience configurations that explain a low intention to participate. These findings particularly highlight the role of psychological aspects of video game experience in amateur esports engagement, especially the meaning, which emerged as a core factor of two solutions for high-intention configurations. This study pioneers the investigation of how two different aspects (i.e., psychological and functional aspects) of the video game experience collectively influence gamers’ readiness to partake in amateur esports, employing a fsQCA methodology for the first time in the context of (amateur) esports. This approach represents a shift from conventional variance-based methods in video games and esports research, offering a nuanced understanding of multiple pathways that lead to the same outcome of participation intention regarding amateur esports engagement. This study expands the current understanding by detailing the complex interplay of different video game experiences that foster a heightened interest in amateur esports engagement.

Underlying thousands of studies on technology adoption is the truism that people make the decision to adopt based on experiences. However, emerging research suggests that memory of those experiences offers an alternative explanation for adoption. Given the little attention placed on the role of the memory of experience in technology adoption, this research explores the phenomenon empirically. Drawing on the technology acceptance model and the theory of planned behavior, this study understands adoption based on individuals’ present beliefs, present attitudes, plus the memory of experiences with the technology, within the context of generative artificial intelligence (AI). The results show that, in addition to the present belief and attitude perspective, the memory of experiences perspective can contribute to technology adoption, while the memory of experiences can significantly influence present beliefs and present attitudes. Our findings entail important implications for practice on promoting technology adoption and providing actionable design strategies.

Abstract We argue that advances in large language models (LLMs) and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) will diminish the value of Wikipedia, due to a withdrawal by human content producers, who will withhold their efforts, perceiving less need for their efforts and increased “AI competition.” We believe the greatest threat to Wikipedia stems from the fact that Wikipedia is a user‐generated product, relying on the “selfish altruism” of its human contributors. Contributors who reduce their contribution efforts as AI pervades the platform, will thus leave Wikipedia increasingly dependent on additional AI activity. This, combined with a dynamic where readership creates authorship and readers being disintermediated, will inevitably cause a vicious cycle leading to a staling of the content and diminishing value of this venerable knowledge resource.

Getting paid for completing microtasks online via crowdsourcing (i.e., microworking) has become a widely accepted way to earn money. Despite disputes over low pay rates, however, little is known about the extent of “lowness” and about the perceptions of microworkers concerning the value of micro-paid online activity. In an online survey on a microtask crowdsourcing platform, respondents demonstrated the dual attitudes of work and leisure toward microworking. Although actual wage rates were lower than microworkers expected, the perceived value of the money earned from microworking was paramount. The monetary equivalent, a newly developed metric calibrating microworkers’ subjective evaluations of monetary and nonmonetary dimensions, of microworking outstripped that of alternative activities, the majority of which were leisure activities. Instead of struggling with below-expectation pay rates, microworkers tend to appreciate the value of small gains, especially in contrast to potential losses incurred by alternatives activities.

Mobile game metrics have received attention since the emergence of big data technology and data-based decision-making. Among different metrics, the monthly active user number is usually significant because it shows the level of players' engagement and the profit of this game as a business. Therefore, the monthly active user number is valuable for researchers, analysts, and decision-makers interested in the mobile game industry. However, the actual monthly active user number data typically have the accuracy, accessibility, granularity, and cost problems. Therefore, a proxy to the monthly active user number would be helpful to facilitate the decision-making process. This paper proposes to capture user activity through the searches on the Internet from an information-seeking perspective. And the online search volume, wiki page view, social media posts and views are proposed as potential proxies. This paper proposes that the online search volume is an acceptable proxy for the monthly active user number in the context of Geo Augmented Reality (AR) mobile games through data analysis.

Gamification—the use of game elements in non-game contexts—is gaining interest among researchers and practitioners. How gamification enhances user engagement, though, remains unclear, largely due to the lack of a theoretical framework. To narrow the theory gap, this study develops a theoretical model, which draws on cognitive evaluation theory to explain the effects of game dynamics on user engagement, and tests it using data collected from 164 users of a gamified information system. The results reveal that gamification enhances user engagement through the mediation of psychological needs satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) between game dynamics and enjoyment. The results suggest that gamification should go beyond merely providing fun and enjoyment; gamification should also generate diverse game dynamics, such as rewards, competition, altruism, and self-expression in a way that helps people to satisfy their psychological needs. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the success of gamification.

Recent work has shown the potential for lights to act as simple, yet expressive signaling mechanisms for use in a variety of human-robot applications. However, the wide range of robot shapes and sizes makes it difficult for researchers to quickly prototype and evaluate different light configurations and signal designs. In this work, we present the design of ModLight, a modular research tool consisting of a set of low cost light blocks that can be easily reconfigured to fit a myriad of robots and applications. ModLight also provides researchers, designers, and students with open-source software tools that enable them to visually design new signals and easily integrate them into existing systems. This work also serves to motivate the need for further research in developing light behaviors for use in human-robot interaction. Towards this goal, we present our design rationale including a brief analysis of the signaling needs of several robots and applications.

Much of the recent research on user contributions to electronic networks has focused on attracting and motivating participations. We, instead, investigate online community defections, their cause, and their impact through an empirical investigation of defections from Wikipedia. Our research uses justice theory to determine the effects of injustice perceptions on contributor defections and draws on fairness heuristic theory to distinguish the relative effects of distributive injustice and procedural injustice. The results show that perceptions of injustice concerning collaboration outcomes (“distributive injustice”) raise contributor dissatisfaction, which in turn leads to defection. Perceptions of injustice concerning the process (“procedural injustice”), by comparison, have a direct impact on defections and exert a stronger influence on dissatisfaction than distributive injustice. Justice emerges as a hygiene factor adding to the level of dissatisfaction among dissatisfied contributors but not among satisfied contributors. The findings contribute to our understanding of collaborative knowledge creation by drawing attention to contributors' post hoc passive emotions and behaviors instead of predominantly investigating their initial prosharing behaviors. The work also has practical implications for community governance because it suggests how to sustain communities in the long term.

The open content creation process has proven itself to be a powerful and influential way of developing text‐based content, as demonstrated by the success of Wikipedia and related sites. Distributed individuals independently edit, revise, or refine content, thereby creating knowledge artifacts of considerable breadth and quality. Our study explores the mechanisms that control and guide the content creation process and develops an understanding of open content governance. The repertory grid method is employed to systematically capture the experiences of individuals involved in the open content creation process and to determine the relative importance of the diverse control and guiding mechanisms. Our findings illustrate the important control and guiding mechanisms and highlight the multifaceted nature of open content governance. A range of governance mechanisms is discussed with regard to the varied levels of formality, the different loci of authority, and the diverse interaction environments involved. Limitations and opportunities for future research are provided.

Abstract This research empirically evaluated the use of mobile information and communication technology in a large‐sized undergraduate class, where the effectiveness of multilearner participation and prompt learner‐instructor interaction is often challenged. The authors analyzed the effectiveness of a so‐called “lean” communication medium using hand‐held mobile devices, whose brief text‐based messages considerably limit the speed of information exchange. Adopting a social construction perspective of media richness theory and a reinforced approach to learning and practice, the authors conjectured that an interactive learning system built with wireless PDA devices can enhance individual practices and reinforce peer influences. Consequently, they expected better understanding and higher satisfaction among learners. A field experiment with 118 participants in the treatment and 114 participants in the control group supported their hypotheses. Their results suggested that richness of a “lean” medium could be increased in certain socially constructed conditions, thus extending existing notions of computer‐aided instruction towards a techno‐social learning model.

Abstract New Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis permit any organizational member of a virtual community of practice (CoP) to dynamically edit, integrate, and rewrite content (what we call knowledge shaping) as well as contribute personal knowledge. Previous research on factors that motivate contribution in virtual CoPs has focused exclusively on factors explaining why people contribute their personal knowledge, with no research focused on why people make the knowledge‐shaping contributions (rewriting, integrating, and restructuring pages) which are possible with wikis. We hypothesize that factors that explain frequency of contribution will be different for those who shape from those who contribute only their personal knowledge. The results support our hypotheses. In addition, we find that shapers are not more likely to be managers or members of a community's core group who might typically serve in an administrator role, contrary to prior expectations. The implications of using Web 2.0 tools to encourage this shaping behavior are discussed.

An approach to organizing storage in database systems is presented that, under a wide range of conditions, saves both storage space and processing time. Text values in a database are replaced by short, fixed-length, rank-preserving numeric tokens. The actual values are stored in separate, non-redundant storage. Database operations that depend only on the relative magnitude of data values can be performed directly on the tokens. Tokenization is shown to improve database performance most in situations where there are a lot of ad hoc queries and a low volume of database insertions relative to other operations.