Launching the Youth Gaming Experience Scales: Probing In-Game Need Satisfaction, Frustration, and Addiction Patterns Across Subgroups of Children and Adolescents through Structural Equation Modeling (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The prevalence of gaming disorder (GD) is a significant concern, particularly among the youth population. Self-determination theory (SDT) has emerged as an innovative framework for understanding the influence of motivation on the development of GD. OBJECTIVE Despite its promising potential, this field of research is at an early stage, presenting gaps that the present study addressed by validating objective measures of in-game basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration (EJEJ-S and EJEJ-F) with the purpose of examining their relationship with GD in a juvenile population. METHODS A sample of 1174 video game players aged 10 to 15 years was analyzed (M = 12.07, SD = 1.23; 38.6% girls, 61.4% boys; 33.8% children, 66.2% adolescents; 76.3% online users, 23.7% offline users) using structural equation modeling (SEM). The study aimed to describe the scales' psychometric characteristics and examine the relationships between video game satisfaction, frustration, use, and addiction across different subpopulations based on gender, developmental stage, and game modality, employing various indicators of video game usage (such as time and frequency) and standardized measures for Gaming Disorder (TDV). RESULTS The analysis of the psychometric properties of the scales confirms their internal structure (model fit based on CFI > 0.95, RMSEA < 0.06, SRMR < 0.08) and measurement quality for the general target population and specific groups (meeting levels of invariance for gender and age groups). This validation supports the reliability of the scales (composite reliability ≥ 0.82), various validity criteria (including structural, convergent, discriminant, criterion, and construct validity), and the data assessed with them. The results revealed differential effects of in-game need satisfaction (depending on gender and video game modality) and frustration (at different age stages) with P < .05 and effect sizes (g) ranging from 0.01 to 0.67. Specifically, the experience of satisfaction was associated with video game use (r = 0.11–0.36) and addiction (r = 0.14–0.35), whereas frustration exhibited a stronger relationship with GD (r = 0.49) than with video game use (r = 0.08–0.12), particularly among subpopulations more vulnerable to GD (male, online, and younger gamers). CONCLUSIONS The capacity of video games to frustrate basic psychological needs is identified as a risk factor with explanatory potential for GD, although its scarce theoretical development requires further research based on objective measures. To this end, the study provides a valid tool to measure satisfaction and frustration in video games in young Spanish gamers. Likewise, future research lines are proposed to extend the theory, and possible practical applications are explored, highlighting the prevention of GD in youth. CLINICALTRIAL gaming disorder, self-determination theory, adolescence, in-game need frustration, in-game need satisfaction, structural equation modeling, factor analysis