Abstract:
This research aims to study the gaming motivations of gamers and to compare the gaming motivations among regular gamers, at-risk gamers, and addicted gamers within the Thai online gaming community, aged between 18 and 60 years. The sample consisted of 313 individuals, selected through convenience sampling. The instruments used included the Trojan player typology questionnaire and game addiction screening test. Personal data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and differences between groups were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis test. The results indicated that the motivations related to story-driven were high for both regular gamers and addicted gamers (xˉ = 3.84, S.D. = .892 and xˉ = 3.71, S.D. = .795, respectively). The risk gamers exhibited the highest level of motivation related to achievement (xˉ = 3.82, S.D. = .753). Overall, the study found that competitive motivation significantly differed among the various levels of gaming addiction at .05 significance level. There was a significant difference in challenge motivation between regular gamers and addicted gamers at the .05 significance level, while no significant differences were found between normal group and risk group, and risk group and addict group.