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Who Stays in the Game? Similarities and Differences Between Current and Former Digital Games Players

Former players offer important yet underutilized insights into the norms and expectations of game communities. Research to date has focused on players who have left particular games, but little is known about the broader forces that lead some players to ultimately quit games altogether. In this paper we report on the results of a nationally representative survey of the US adult population where respondents were asked about their leisure activities, including if they currently or have previously played digital games. By identifying patterns amongst people who quit as compared to people who remain active players, our goal is to better understand the factors that push or pull people away from gaming. Doing so contributes to the literature on digital game players broadly, while also potentially making it easier for game scholars to identify—and subsequently recruit—former players to participate in games-related research. Implications for future research recruitment are discussed.