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With the increasing popularity of online games like Pokémon Go, a new wave of crowdsourcing communities have emerged, allowing gamers to collaborate, communicate and share useful game-related information. This paper aims to examine the factors that influence gamers' crowdsourcing behaviour.

A conceptual framework is developed that combines the DeLone & McLean model, self-determination theory, and different levels of engagement behaviour. The online survey collected 371 responses that were analysed using Covariance Based Structural Equation Modelling (CB-SEM).

The results show that extrinsic and intrinsic motivation positively influenced gamers' crowdsourcing engagement intention. System quality and information quality were also confirmed to be positively associated with gamers' crowdsourcing engagement intention. Furthermore, crowdsourcing engagement intention was found to be positively associated with crowdsourcing content consumption, contribution, and creation.

The findings of this study are useful for the owners of Pokémon Go and other gaming-related crowdsourcing platforms in devising tailored strategies to increase the crowdsourcing engagement of gamers.

This study provides the first empirical evidence of factors motivating online gamers' crowdsourcing intention. This study also presents novel insight into online gamers' crowdsourcing intention by combining diverse theories which offer different perspectives and a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. Contribution to the research on the intention-behaviour gap by modelling three behavioural outcomes (content creation, contribution, and consumption behaviour) of crowdsourcing engagement intention, is another important contribution of this study.

The purpose of this research was to explore the stickiness of players' motivation in a virtual community and to explore the important factors for gamers.

In this research, motivation was the independent variable; the virtual community was the mediator; and stickiness was the dependent variable. An online questionnaire survey was conducted, with users of augmented reality (AR) as the research objects. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS and AMOS software to verify the research model and research hypotheses, to understand the relation between player motivation and stickiness and to determine whether there were any changes in the virtual community.

The authors found that the relation between players' motivation in AR-based games and the virtual community had a significant positive impact. Ingress had a significant positive impact on the virtual community and stickiness, and Pokémon had a significant positive impact too. The virtual community of the Ingress game played a completely mediating role in motivation and stickiness, but the virtual community in Pokémon did not have a mediating effect.

The novel approach adopted in this study enabled us to determine the causal relation between player motivation, the virtual community and stickiness, on the basis of the theoretical framework formulated, and the latter was used to construct a path analysis model diagram. The correlation between motivation and the virtual community, between the virtual community and stickiness, and the causal relation between all three was verified. The study results and conclusions may help companies understand how to use virtual communities in AR games to improve stickiness and motivate gamers to continue playing.

This article explores the implications of virtual social spaces for conceptualizing community engagement in the practice of architecture and design by critically analyzing multidisciplinary approaches to conceptualizing community namely space, place, and context to envision social spaces of virtual community engagement by architects and designers.

This conceptual article utilized narrative literature review as the primary method for conducting a transdisciplinary theoretical integration. First, the authors defined the metaverse as all manner of human-technological interaction. Second, the authors discussed theories of place from architecture, social geography, and human ecology and employed neoecological theory to describe the interactional processes inherent in research and practice with virtual communities. Finally, the authors documented specific types of virtual engagement strategies in architectural research and practice.

Virtual environments provide varied opportunities for effective collaborations among architects, designers, and community members. The primary strategies identified by the literature review of virtual community engagement were collaborative, augmented reality, and situated digital experiences. In addition, researchers have found that the most effective community engagement bridges interactions in the physical space and digitally mediated interactions.

The authors advocate for increased research towards understanding how the expanded availability of more complex technological tools, such as future versions of artificial intelligence (AI) software, may further layer the landscape of community engagement in ways that may be unpredictable and currently less understood. Additional research is also needed to address participants' perspectives in virtual community engagement and explore how the building of communities in the meta-context is felt, lived, and understood by those who act in them.

The availability of new technological tools and digital platforms challenges diverse professionals to expand their community-engaged practice into the metaverse. Although not every community has broadband Internet or software access, many physical locations whether community centers, libraries, schools, or one’s own home may serve as safe spaces for novel virtual engagement experiences by individuals and groups. Digital engagement can increase opportunities for involvement from persons who are home-bound, lack transportation or child-care to attend in-person community events, or may desire the anonymity afforded by virtual engagement.

Virtual environments can provide varied opportunities for effective collaboration among architects, designers, and community members by overcoming physical or nonphysical barriers to in-person engagement. For example, recent case studies of civic and community organizations have successfully integrated physical and virtual community engagement during the global COVID-19 pandemic by overcoming physical or nonphysical barriers to in-person engagement. Community development theorists have referred to such contexts as a “post-place community” in which individuals find solidarity through digital global networks.

This article theorizes virtual community engagement in the metaverse from a transdisciplinary perspective and coins the innovative concept of meta-contexts to describe a global “post-place” community. Integrating theories of place from architecture, social geography, and human ecology guides an original review of effective strategies for meta-contextual digital community engagement by architects and designers.

The aim of this study is to explain the educational practices that emerged with the concept of “new normal” in an overview. In line with this goal, the experiences of academics who are experts in their fields have been utilized.

This paper draws on both academic and trade literature. Interviews with representatives from schools providing tourism education in North Cyprus were conducted online and in-person. The qualitative research method in the form of the interview method was employed in the research. The research participants consist of 15 academics working in the field of tourism education. Additionally, concerning the selection of these participants, sector experience and applied lecture status were taken into consideration. As the second dimension of the research, an extensive literature review was conducted and the subject was expanded by explaining it with examples from around the world.

It has been revealed in the research that educational institutions and tourist businesses have to constantly renew themselves technologically. The findings obtained from academics include the innovations they use in the “new normal” tourism education in applications such as Hybrid/BL – Blended Learning, VR – Virtual Reality, Artificial intelligence, LMS & In-class response systems, API-based software systems in the courses they teach. The common opinion of academics who want to provide a better education is that educational institutions should always be infrastructurally prepared for such emergencies.

The global COVID-19 pandemic created economic destruction in many countries and brought life to a halt. In the tourism sector, one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 problem, various restrictions were imposed on touristic activities. While this situation caused a decrease in demand in the tourism sector, it paved the way for great technological changes and resulted in the adoption of new educational practices in institutions providing tourism education. This paper traces these new development in the face of the pandemic crisis.

This paper aims to examine the impact of metaverse experiences on customers’ offline behavioral intentions: How do customers’ visits to a hospitality business’s virtual property in the metaverse affect their intentions to visit the physical property in the real world?

Based on the general learning model and social cognitive theory, this research hypothesizes the positive impact of metaverse experiences on customers’ visit intentions and explores two boundary conditions for positive impact: user–avatar resemblance and servicescape similarity. Two experimental studies were conducted.

Metaverse experience has a significant impact on customers’ visit intentions, and this impact is moderated by user–avatar resemblance and servicescape similarity.

This research addresses the call for empirical studies regarding the effects of metaverse experience on people’s behavioral intentions.

As one of the earliest empirical studies on the marketing effects of the metaverse, this research provides a basis for future metaverse studies in the hospitality field.

Virtual goods consumption has risen dramatically in recent years. Recognizing the benefits of virtual goods in generating revenue for online game companies, marketers strive to understand the motives behind virtual goods purchases. We investigated the direct and indirect effects of functional, emotional, and social values through player satisfaction on purchase intention toward virtual goods among online players.

In total, we surveyed 332 online game players utilizing a structured questionnaire. We employed a multi-analytic approach combining partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) to examine the proposed relationships.

The findings show that all dimensions of value and player satisfaction significantly affect the intention to acquire virtual goods. However, social value does not exert a significant effect on player satisfaction. Moreover, we confirmed that player satisfaction mediates the relationships between functional value, emotional value, and purchase intention. Furthermore, NCA results indicated that all predictors in the model are necessary conditions of purchase intention for virtual goods.

These findings contribute to an enhanced understanding of purchase intentions among online game players from a symmetric (PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (NCA) perspective by proposing a multi-analytic approach.

This paper aims to investigate public library staff engagement and perceptions of video games and video game services.

Quantitative and qualitative data on staff video game experiences, perceptions and confidence were collected through an online questionnaire.

The results indicate an overall positive perception of video games in public libraries, with 87% of the respondents supporting video games in public libraries. Video game players appear to think more positively about video games and have more general knowledge about them than non-players. They also appeared to be more confident in delivering related services and were more likely to be running gaming-related events. It was concluded that staff attitudes towards video games are not a barrier to their inclusion in public libraries, as found in previous research.

Encouraging staff engagement with video games may improve their knowledge and confidence in delivering video game services, although further research is required to confirm this. There is a potentially underserved population of those aged 46–84 years, nearly half of whom play video games. Evaluation of this potentially underserved population is an interesting topic for future research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first survey of public library staff views towards video games in Aotearoa New Zealand, and it updates previous research in light of developments in gaming, gaming technology and the increased focus on public libraries as providers of digital technology and sites of community engagement.

This study utilised Mehrabian and Russel's stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model to investigate the inter-relationship between perceived social media information qualities (IQ) of online UGC, destination image, perceived travel risk and behavioural intentions.

A total of 255 responses from international tourists were collected. The data collection via an online survey was performed from October 2020 to February 2021. The study model and hypotheses were examined using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The result indicated that social media intrinsic, representational, and social IQ significantly influenced tourists perceived cognitive image, while only contextual and social IQ significantly predicted the perceived affective image. This study also confirms the significant effect of cognitive image on the affective image. In addition, the authors found that both destination image components, cognitive and affective, significantly affect tourists' behavioural intentions. However, surprisingly, tourists' perceived travel risk did not moderate the effect of destination image components on behavioural intentions.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by extending Mehrabian and Russel's SOR model in the tourism behaviour context.

From a practical perspective, this study proves that UGC significantly affects destination image and plays an integral part in luring tourists to visit a destination.

Previous research in this area is limited, making this study particularly novel. This study represents one of the initial attempts to evaluate the dimensions of information quality in UGC on social media and online review platforms, particularly within the field of tourism. Treating online travel UGC seriously could assist organisations in leveraging tourist behaviour and enhancing destination image.

Online games are popular applications of Internet technology, with over 2.8 billion users worldwide. Many players engage in team gameplay, indicating that online games are suitable media through which players connect with their friends. However, past studies have not examined the ability of games to assist players in connecting with their friends, indicating a gap. To fill this gap, the authors propose a new concept, the friend-connecting affordance, which is the ability of an online game to enable players to contact friends within the game.

The authors built a model to explain how games' friend-connecting affordances influence game loyalty. The authors gathered responses from 1,347 online players and used structural equation modeling to test the model.

The authors found that friend-connecting affordances and team participation influence game loyalty. Gaming intensity and gaming history can moderate the impact of friend-connecting affordances.

This new affordance can be realized through various game elements, offering unique and actionable insights to game makers. The authors also compared the friend-connecting affordances among a number of popular online games, providing insights specific to each game and increasing the practical value of the findings.

This study evaluated the determinants of augmented reality (AR) adoption in Malaysia's travel and tour operator sectors through an integrated technology-organization-environmental (TOE) and diffusion of innovation (DOI) model.

The TOE and DOI were considered the primary theoretical models but are combined and extended by including few additional variables. Data were collected from 220 respondents of travel and tour operating businesses in Malaysia and analyzed by applying PLS structural equation model technique.

The empirical results established that perceived cost, relative advantages, complexity and compatibility, observability, competitor pressure, value alignment, customer pressure, and trialability are positively connected with the behavioral intention except for external support. The results reveal that value alignment partially mediates the association between relative advantages and behavioral intention, complexity and behavioral intention, compatibility and behavioral intention, perceived cost and behavioral intention except in between trialability and observability.

This research is unique as the value alignment construct is included in the model, and thus it fulfills the literature gap by adding the mediation construct. This study contributes to enhancing AR's understanding of the Malaysian travel and tour operator industry through the lenses of owners or managers. It offers an integrated model that combines the TOE and DOI models, rare in this sector, and can be replicated or extended with validated scales.