Communication and commitment in an online game team.

Theories about commitment in online settings and empirical evidence from offline environments suggest that greater communication in online groups should lead members to become more committed and participate longer. However, experimental evidence is sparse, in part because of difficulties inducing communication online. Moreover, previous work has not identified the route by which communication leads to increased commitment. In this paper, we investigated whether task versus social communication modeled by a leader versus a peer influenced the amount that group members talked and their willingness to continue participating in the group. We conducted an experiment within ad hoc groups in the online game World of Warcraft. Results suggest that communication early in a group's history causes members to talk more later on and that the early communication increases their commitment through its influence on group atmosphere rather than through increased member participation. Social communication by a peer is especially valuable in increasing commitment.