Underlying factors of social capital acquisition in the context of online-gaming: Comparing World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike

• We constructed and evaluated a model of social capital acquisition in online-gaming.
• Behaviors in clans and guilds predict self-disclosure and communication frequency.
• Self-disclosure and communication frequency predict social capital acquisition.
• The model fits the data well for samples stemming from games of different genres.

The present study examines how players’ behaviors within gaming-communities (clans and guilds) influence the acquisition of social capital in online-gaming. In contrast to most existing studies, our study asks for crucial underlying factors of social capital acquisition and thereby includes players of online-games of different genres to allow comparisons. We hypothesize that frequently playing together (familiarity), participating in offline events (physical proximity) and being involved in clan/guild administration (social proximity) lead to more communication with fellow players and foster self-disclosure towards fellow players, which together facilitates the formation of bridging and bonding social capital. A sample of 682 clan/guild players of the games Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft was recruited via Internet and was asked to fill out a questionnaire. Results of a path analysis support our assumptions and enhance previous findings that players of online-games especially gain positive social outcomes, when they go beyond the game and join game-related groups, engage in clan/guild administration and participate in offline events. By revealing the crucial role of self-disclosure and communication frequency as underlying factors of social capital acquisition in online-gaming, our results provide a deeper insight into these mechanisms than existing studies. Our findings have implications of general importance, since the tested model worked well for player samples stemming from online-games of different genres.