Analysis and Explanation of the Causal Relationship Between the Online Game Clash of Clans and Behavioral Changes of the Players.

This paper is an attempt to discover and explain the causal relationship between playing an online game named Clash of Clans and the behavioral changes of its players in Iran. This game was launched on August 2, 2012 and is classified as one of the addictive games. Clash of Clans has been popular in Iran since2014 and has involved many people from various social strata. This game is not specific to age, sex, or class and has attracted various people from various age groups. In order to provide and explanation for such addictive behavior and to conduct this research, the theory of cultivation and social learning has been synthetically used. An online questionnaire was also used to collect the necessary data. Methodologically, at the first step, a qualitative approach was used to discover what type of question need to be put into the quantitative questionnaire. Then, we used a survey method to analyze and explain the relationship between playing the mentioned game and how it affects the behavioral change of the players. Some findings show that this game is mostly played by men, single people and students. In other words, married women are less inclined to play this game. Also, the older people with permanent jobs tend to play it less. The pattern of game addiction also starts with friends and then it is transferred to player’s family. The data also shows that the Iranian family has built a stronger foundation for fighting the gaming addiction.
The hypothesis of this research that the more people are familiar with the game, the longer the playing time was confirmed through a simple correlation test. The more family members or close friends play this game, the more hours of the day the player spends playing.
By studying the frequencies, we found that men play the game more than women, singles play the game more than married people. It was also found that Clash players are mostly in the age group of 20 to 30 years and mostly play between one and four hours a day. Most of the Clash players are students and they encourage others to play as well. Another interesting results that was obtained from the tests is that there is a non-false causal relationship between the number of game installs and the cost for it, which means that people are willing to pay more due to their addictiveness of this game.
Therefore, the two factors of cultivation and social learning that we mentioned in the theoretical synthesis are involved in promoting and continuing the game among Iranian respondents. Initial attraction may play a role in game initiation, but we have shown that friends and family encourage each other to play. Accordingly, friends and family play a more important role than the attractiveness of the game in the promotion and addiction of the game among Iranians.