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Although often ignored, adult gamers, as with children and adolescents, can suffer from problematic gaming. This study explores the use of a built-in gaming gradual intervention system (G-GIS) designed to help adult gamers achieve their desired gaming habits in an autonomous and acceptable manner. In this study, we interviewed 26 heavy adult gamers (i.e., adult gamers who played frequently and for relatively long periods of time) of an online poker game using an in-built G-GIS. Then, we triangulated the interviewees' results with their real-world behavioral data collected over eight months to explore how demographics, attitudes, and contextual factors influenced their use of the G-GIS. The results indicate that family and occupation demographics play key roles in determining adult gamers' gaming habits and their self-control under G-GIS intervention. We also revealed that adult gamers' attitudes and contextual factors can facilitate or hinder the effectiveness of the G-GIS. The findings of this study extend our understanding of heavy adult gamers and reveal how a G-GIS influences adult gamers at the individual level, which can be applied in the design of future game intervention systems, particularly for adult gamers.
Zhou et al. (Tue,) studied this question.