Different Gameplay Styles, Different Psychological Needs – Linking Relatedness to Behavioral Indicators of Relational Social Influence

As Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) grow in popularity and complexity, understanding how gameplay styles relate to players’ psychological needs is increasingly important. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study examines the associations between competence, autonomy, and relatedness and two dominant gameplay styles: achievement-oriented gameplay (AOG) and social-oriented gameplay (SOG). Given that relational influence provides an important context in which relatedness is enacted and sustained, we incorporate two interaction-based behavioral indicators – Social Value and Receptivity – as behavior-based measures of relational social influence. Using Sky: Children of the Light, we integrated large-scale behavioral data with survey responses. Structural equation modeling revealed that AOG was positively associated with competence and autonomy but negatively associated with relatedness and behavior-based relational influence, whereas SOG showed the opposite pattern, with parallel directional effects observed across relatedness and behavioral indicators of relational influence. A significant negative residual correlation was also observed between AOG and SOG. The results show that psychological need satisfaction differs across players’ gameplay orientations and highlight relatedness as a dynamic process shaped through ongoing interaction.