In order to create a better living environment for everyone, achievement of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals is the direction in which the whole world is working. Ways to engage in public welfare activities have become increasingly diverse, including by playing public welfare games; however, research on this topic is still limited. Further, the reasons why players would like to play these types of games, and whether their needs are fulfilled, have not yet been fully explored. Therefore, this research used Ant Manor, a mobile game on Alipay, one of the most widely used platforms in the world, as the research context. The study drew on the Use and Gratification Theory (UGT) to establish a belief-motivation-result model, in order to discuss the role of ShanNian (善念; similar to the English concept of altruism) in forming three types of gratification—achievement, public welfare, and society, and in creating happiness. There were 509 student players from China who participated in this research, including 228 males (44.8%) and 281 females (55.2%), with an average age of 20.33 years. According to the Structural Equation Modeling results: (1) ShanNian positively predicted the three types of gameplay gratification; (2) The three types of gameplay gratification positively predicted subjective well-being; and (3) ShanNian positively predicted subjective well-being. According to the results, ShanNian positively predicts people’s engagement in public welfare activities.
Ye et al. (Tue,) studied this question.