Why Korean Gamers Choose and Continue Playing Games: A Motivational Analysis

Korean gamers choose games not by genre, but by reason.

This analysis unpacks how relationships, growth, and time shape continued play through a motivational structure lens.

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Analysis Overview: Structurally Understanding Game Play Motivation

This Motivational Keywords Analysis was designed to structurally examine why Korean gamers choose the games they currently play and what drives them to continue playing. Rather than asking about preferred genres or platforms, the study begins by having respondents directly articulate the underlying motivations they perceive behind their game selection and continued play.

The study was conducted with n = 285 Korean gamers who were actively playing games at the time of the survey. Each respondent was asked to freely describe their reasons for playing their current game. In many cases, multiple motivations appeared within a single response—an intentional outcome reflecting the assumption that real-world game play motivation is inherently multi-layered rather than driven by a single factor.

The collected open-ended responses were then cleaned and processed to enable quantitative analysis. Using a Python-based text analysis environment with a BERT-based library, recurring expressions and semantic units were extracted. Semantically similar keywords were grouped into eight core categories of game play motivation. These final categories were: entry triggers, play convenience, social connection, growth and progression, events and rewards, competition and skill, time efficiency, and immersion and worldbuilding. Each response could be classified into multiple categories, applying an overlapping classification approach. This decision was made to preserve the original complexity of players’ motivations rather than oversimplifying them.

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The Overall Motivational Structure of Korean Gamers

Looking at the full dataset, the most central reason Korean gamers play games is social connection (36.1%). This indicates that games are perceived not merely as individual entertainment, but as social activities that help maintain relationships and enable interaction with friends and acquaintances.

The second most prominent motivation is growth and progression (24.6%). The accumulation of characters, accounts, and long-term advancement systems functions as a key foundation for sustained play. Together, these two motivations form the core axis of game play motivation, suggesting that Korean gamers’ experiences are built on shared relationships and continuous accumulation.

Following these are competition and skill (19.3%) and time efficiency (18.2%), which appear at similar levels. This reflects the simultaneous presence of a desire to improve performance and a practical need to use limited time efficiently. Entry triggers (17.5%) also account for a meaningful share, highlighting the importance of persuasive factors at the game selection stage. Meanwhile, events and rewards, immersion and worldbuilding, and play convenience do not independently dominate the structure, but instead function as supporting motivations that influence satisfaction and retention.

Overall, Korean gamers’ play motivations form a layered structure: social connection at the center, supported by growth and progression, and surrounded by pragmatic play criteria and decision-making factors.

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Differences Between Overall Motivation and Age-Based Structures

When this average structure is broken down by age group, clear differences in motivational emphasis emerge—patterns that are not visible in the aggregate data alone. While the overall data provides a shared baseline for Korean gamers, age-based analysis reveals which motivations rise above or fall below that baseline.

Ages 18–22: Social Connection as the Dominant Core

Among gamers aged 18–22, social connection reaches 45.3%, significantly exceeding the overall average and surpassing all other motivational categories by a wide margin. This figure does more than indicate a top-ranked motivation—it effectively defines the motivational structure of this age group.

Competition and skill (25.2%) and growth and progression (21.4%) follow, but with a clear gap from social connection. Notably, competition and skill appear at a higher level than the overall average (19.3%), indicating that competitive self-expression operates alongside social play in this group. In contrast, immersion and worldbuilding (8.2%) and events and rewards (10.7%) remain relatively low, showing that narrative depth or reward systems are secondary to human connection and interaction.

Ages 23–27: A Distributed Motivation Structure

For gamers aged 23–27, the composition of top motivations shifts noticeably. Social connection (28.3%) remains the highest category, but the gap with growth and progression (26.4%) is minimal, and time efficiency (20.8%) also ranks highly. The small differences among the top motivations indicate that no single factor dominates this age group’s play structure.

Competition and skill drops to 9.4%, the lowest among all age groups, creating a sharp contrast with younger players. This suggests that gamers in this segment balance relationship maintenance, account progression, and time management rather than prioritizing competitive performance. While their structure appears closest to the overall average, it is better characterized as a distributed motivational structure, where multiple motivations coexist without a single dominant driver.

Ages 28 and Above: Growth, Immersion, and Sustainability Take Priority

Among gamers aged 28 and above, the hierarchy of motivations shifts once again. Growth and progression (30.1%) becomes the most prominent motivation, surpassing social connection (21.9%). Immersion and worldbuilding (19.2%) and time efficiency (19.2%) form a shared upper tier, while entry triggers (21.9%) and events and rewards (16.4%) also appear at relatively higher levels compared to younger groups.

Motivations that functioned as secondary factors in the overall dataset move into the core structure for this age group. Social connection does not disappear, but it no longer leads the structure. Instead, long-term growth, immersion in content, and factors that support sustained engagement become central, a shift that is clearly reflected in the data.

Data Source: Direct Research Korea panel, n=285 (Male 59.3%, Female 40.7%)

Online Fieldwork: Dec 3–5, 2025