The development and validation of the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ)

Francisco J. López-Fernández; Laura Mezquita; Mark D. Griffiths; Generós Ortet; Manuel I. Ibáñez

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240726

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 28, 2020
30 Jul 2020 Decision Letter - Francesca Chiesi, Editor PONE-D-20-12358 The development and validation of the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ibáñez, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 13 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please include additional information about your scoping review in your methods section, including search strategy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, to enable reproducibility and replicability. 3. Please proofread your manuscript for typos (for instance item 3 of table 2). 4. Your ethics statement must appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please also ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics section of your online submission will not be published alongside your manuscript. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Ms #: PONE-D-20-12358 Title: The development and validation of the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) Authors: López F, et al. Summary: This study examined the factor structure of a new instrument, the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire, in three samples of Spanish adolescents and young adults. Study 1 used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to define empirical factors in young adults. The EFA revealed that an 8-factor model best explained the data. This pattern was replicated in Study 2 in a sample of adolescents. Finally, Study 3 used confirmatory factor analysis to demonstrate a selective mapping/loading of items to the 8 respective motive factors. Overall psychometric properties indicated clear simple structure and internal reliability of all factors. The sample size was sufficient to conclude the models are stable. Coping was identified as a key motive linked with gaming duration and with disordered gaming (DG), based on an author-compiled index of DG. Social interaction was also strongly linked with heavier gaming and DG. The latter result may reflect a preference for on-line socializing by people who are not entirely comfortable with direct interpersonal encounters. Violent motives also coincided with DG, while male gender coincided with stronger endorsement of all motives, aside from Customization, and DG, consistent with other addictive behaviors. The Discussion interpreted the findings for each of the key motives and proposed possible reasons for the pattern of effects. Comments/Questions: 1. Ms p. 3, line 51 The term "gaming addiction" is used along with a number of others (disordered gaming, pathological video gaming, disordered gaming behavior) to describe the syndrome under investigation. For simplicity, it would be helpful if the authors select a single term to describe the syndrome and use that consistently throughout the manuscript. They might even mention, parenthetically, that they will be using this term to describe the target syndrome, the first time it is introduced. 2. Ms p. 7 - line 103 The term "IGD" is introduced but not defined. Perhaps Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) is the term they wish to use as their standard description of the syndrome? 3. Table 1 provides a very clear summary of the findings to date. 4. Ms p. 8, lines 129-130: "All these deficiencies impede..." It is not clear that these are "deficiencies" as opposed to different conceptual or explanatory frameworks or preferred terminology. Perhaps a more neutral description (e.g., "This variability across the different gaming scales impedes...") would work equally well? 5. In the Introduction, it would be helpful to specify the age of “adolescents” (12-17 years)? "young adults" (18-25 years)? 6. Page 8 - When describing the Participants, it would be helpful to report any incentive offered or alternative reason to participate in the study, or if none was offered, this could be stated as well. Same for studies 2 and 3. 6. Ms p. 9, line 151 "recruited from the LAN party" The term LAN should be defined for general readership 7. Ms p. 9, line 156 "Through an exhaustive scoping review of the literature" It would be helpful to specify which databases were examined, the years of publication deemed eligible for inclusion, and a sample of the search terms used. 8. Ms p 9, line 172 What was the rationale for using oblique as opposed to orthogonal rotation to achieve simple structure in the two EFAs? 9. Ms p 11, lines 220-2 Weekly number of gaming hours was obtained by adding online and offline daily hours and multiplying the days of these periods of the week by the total number of hours. Global retrospective estimates of time engaged in activities like drinking or gambling have been found to be less accurate than values based on a Timeline Followback (see Sobell and Sobell 1992) procedure. Since Timeline Followback was not mentioned here, the limitations of the current reporting procedure should be acknowledged in the Discussion 10. Ms p 12, line 246 Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to examine the relationship between motives, gaming intensity and problems, while controlling for age and gender. What was the method of entry of predictors in each stage, and briefly what was the rationale for this? 11. Ms p. 18 Study 3 refers to the Emerging Adulthood sample. This is the only time this terminology is used. Were the age inclusion criteria different than for study 2? If not, perhaps it is best to stick with 'Young Adult' as the description? 12. Ms p. 21 In the Discussion, before launching into the specific motives that emerged, it would be good to state that an 8-factor model appeared to best explain the data in all 3 samples, and to report the proportion of variance explained by these factors in each case. The first paragraph under Conclusion, p 26 addresses many of these points and could be moved up to the beginning of this section. Some comment on the inter-correlation vs. orthogonality of factors might also be made and what this overall pattern of scores means for VMQ as assessment tool, generally. The consistent elevation in motive endorsement by males, aside from customization, may also merit some comment. 13. As the authors note, Coping emerged as a reliable and somewhat selective predictor of disordered gaming (as compared with Social Interaction, for example). Although this makes intuitive sense, I think this linkage, which, again as noted, is seen with other addictive behaviors, might be considered a bit more with respect to addiction pathology. For example, what is the difference between wanting to engage in a behavior and needing to do so? How do these different global motivations correspond to the concept of "dependence" within the addiction framework? And what would be the expected role of environmental factors like "stress" as a conditioned (i.e., involuntary) cue for gaming in people with these different motivational profiles? Minor Points: 1. Ms p. 4, line 71 "based on well-stablished theories" Typo: well-[e]stablished 2. Ms p. 7, line 119 "the described motives suffer from [?] of ‘jingle-jangle’ fallacies," Missing words [a form] 3. Table 2, Cognitive Development factor: Item 3 (Games make me thing). Typo - Games make me thin[k] 4. Ms p. 19, line 320 "we used the S−Bχ2/df to overcome such problem [74]." Syntax "to overcome [this] problem" ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-12358-rev.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240726.r001
Revision 1
11 Sep 2020 Author Response Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Response: Done 2. Please include additional information about your scoping review in your methods section, including search strategy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, to enable reproducibility and replicability. Response: Dear editor, We regret to inform you that there was a translation misunderstanding (an example of “lost in translation”) with regard to the term “scoping review”. We conducted an extensive review of motivational scale studies, selecting most of the relevant questionnaires used in research, but it was not a scoping review. Later, when the English language revision of the paper was carried out, “extensive review” was changed to “scoping review”. This was unfortunate as these concepts are different. We would like to apologize again. Accordingly, we have changed the term “scoping review” for the original “extensive review”. In any case, we have described in more detail which databases were examined, the years of publication eligible for inclusion, and a sample of the search terms used, as suggested (see p. 9, lines 160-165) 3. Please proofread your manuscript for typos (for instance item 3 of table 2). Response: Done 4. Your ethics statement must appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please also ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics section of your online submission will not be published alongside your manuscript. Response: Done Response to reviewer: We really appreciate the reviewer’s contribution. 1. Ms p. 3, line 51 The term "gaming addiction" is used along with a number of others (disordered gaming, pathological video gaming, disordered gaming behavior) to describe the syndrome under investigation. For simplicity, it would be helpful if the authors select a single term to describe the syndrome and use that consistently throughout the manuscript. They might even mention, parenthetically, that they will be using this term to describe the target syndrome, the first time it is introduced. Response: p. 3, line 53-54 “These inclusions in the DSM-5 and ICD-11 assume that disordered gaming, (for simplicity, this term will be used throughout the manuscript to describe the syndrome)… “ 2. Ms p. 7 - line 103 The term "IGD" is introduced but not defined. Perhaps Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) is the term they wish to use as their standard description of the syndrome? Response: p. 3, line 47-49 … defined as a “persistent and recurrent use of the Internet to engage in games, often with other players, leading to clinically significant impairment or distress ...” 3. Table 1 provides a very clear summary of the findings to date. 4. Ms p. 8, lines 129-130: "All these deficiencies impede..." It is not clear that these are "deficiencies" as opposed to different conceptual or explanatory frameworks or preferred terminology. Perhaps a more neutral description (e.g., "This variability across the different gaming scales impedes...") would work equally well? Response: p. 8, lines 132-133 “This variability across the different gaming scales impedes…” 5. In the Introduction, it would be helpful to specify the age of “adolescents” (12-17 years)? "young adults" (18-25 years)? Response: p. 3, line 43 “… adolescents (12-17 years) and young adults (18-24 year)” 6. Page 8 - When describing the Participants, it would be helpful to report any incentive offered or alternative reason to participate in the study, or if none was offered, this could be stated as well. Same for studies 2 and 3. Study 1 Response: p. 9, line 156 “Participants voluntarily completed an online survey without any compensation” Study 2 Response: p. 11, line 210 “… and received school supplies as an incentive” Study 3 Response: p. 19, line 323 “The survey was selflessly completed online” 6. Ms p. 9, line 151 "recruited from the LAN party" The term LAN should be defined for general readership Response: pp. 8-9, lines 153-154 “.. an event at the Jaume I University in which gamers gathered to play multiplayer video games, ..” 7. Ms p. 9, line 156 "Through an exhaustive scoping review of the literature" It would be helpful to specify which databases were examined, the years of publication deemed eligible for inclusion, and a sample of the search terms used. Response: p. 9, lines 160-165 Through an extensive review of the literature concerning gaming motivation scales, 25 relevant gaming motive scales were selected. For the review, it was conducted a search in the databases PsycINFO and Google Scholar from 2000 to present, combining the key words motives or motivation, video game or gaming, scale or questionnaire. Furthermore, citations from selected studies of our database were used to continue the review process until no other relevant study was found. 8. Ms p 9, line 172 What was the rationale for using oblique as opposed to orthogonal rotation to achieve simple structure in the two EFAs? Response: Oblimin rotation (which does not assume prior relations between factors and allows axes to freely rotate) is somewhat more exploratory than orthogonal rotation (which assumes independence between factors and forces axes to be orthogonal), and also allows to estimate the intercorrelations between factors. Based on previous psychometric studies on motives for gaming and other addictive behaviors, we expected high intercorrelations between factors. Accordingly, oblimin rotation was used in the pilot study. The pilot study confirmed that factors were highly intercorrelated, so the oblimin rotation was also used in the EFA of the second study, and the correlations between factors were specified in the CFA of the third study. Thus, we have added in Statistical Analysis section of study 2: p. 13, lines 255-257 “As the pilot study showed that motives were intercorrelated, an EFA with principal axis factoring and oblique rotation (oblimin) was performed for testing the VMQ with original eight-factor model using IBM SPSS Statistics V21.0.” 9. Ms p 11, lines 220-2 Weekly number of gaming hours was obtained by adding online and offline daily hours and multiplying the days of these periods of the week by the total number of hours. Global retrospective estimates of time engaged in activities like drinking or gambling have been found to be less accurate than values based on a Timeline Followback (see Sobell and Sobell 1992) procedure. Since Timeline Followback was not mentioned here, the limitations of the current reporting procedure should be acknowledged in the Response: Discussion p. 29, lines 562-564 “Fourth, the time engaged in gaming was obtained by self-report retrospective estimates, which have been found to be less accurate than other procedures such as Timeline Followback [82]”. 10. Ms p 12, line 246 Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to examine the relationship between motives, gaming intensity and problems, while controlling for age and gender. What was the method of entry of predictors in each stage, and briefly what was the rationale for this? Response: p. 13, lines 263-267 “Previous research has shown that gender and age were relevant variables in video game–related behaviors, such as disordered use or video game genre preferences (e.g., [9,32,57]). Therefore, hierarchical multiple regressions were controlled for gender and age by introducing them in step 1, whereas motives were entered in step 2”. 11. Ms p. 18 Study 3 refers to the Emerging Adulthood sample. This is the only time this terminology is used. Were the age inclusion criteria different than for study 2? If not, perhaps it is best to stick with 'Young Adult' as the description? Response: p. 19, line 318 “Study 3. Young adult sample study” 12. Ms p. 21 In the Discussion, before launching into the specific motives that emerged, it would be good to state that an 8-factor model appeared to best explain the data in all 3 samples, and to report the proportion of variance explained by these factors in each case. AND The first paragraph under Conclusion, p 26 addresses many of these points and could be moved up to the beginning of this section. AND Some comment on the inter-correlation vs. orthogonality of factors might also be made and what this overall pattern of scores means for VMQ as assessment tool, generally. AND The consistent elevation in motive endorsement by males, aside from customization, may also merit some comment. Response: p. 22., lines 402-405 “As a result, the VMQ consisted of an 8-intercorrelated-factor model that appeared to best explain the data. It showed good internal consistency and temporal stability reliability indices, and also presented evidence of validity when predicting video game frequency of use and disordered gaming.” And the information of % of variance is now presented at the Result sections of each study (Factor Structure) Initial testing: 78.7%; Adolescent sample study: 78.5% & Young adulthood sample: 81.9% p. 28, lines 546-556 “Regarding gender, adolescent and young adult males presented higher scores than females in nearly all scales apart from customization, especially in competitive, violent reward and social interaction motives. These higher motivational levels in male gender for almost all motives has been systematically found in previous studies (e.g., [32-36, 57]). Along these lines, it has been reported that adolescent males prefer competitive and violent game genres, such as action-shooters, sport, fight or strategy games; whereas girls prefer game genres such as brain and skill games, and social simulation games, more characterized by customization aspects [9]. These gender-based differences on motives for gaming may help to explain why males, who prefer games featuring more time-consuming and engagement characteristics, presented higher prevalence of regular and disordered use of video games than females [7].” 13. As the authors note, Coping emerged as a reliable and somewhat selective predictor of disordered gaming (as compared with Social Interaction, for example). Although this makes intuitive sense, I think this linkage, which, again as noted, is seen with other addictive behaviors, might be considered a bit more with respect to addiction pathology. For example, what is the difference between wanting to engage in a behavior and needing to do so? How do these different global motivations correspond to the concept of "dependence" within the addiction framework? And what would be the expected role of environmental factors like "stress" as a conditioned (i.e., involuntary) cue for gaming in people with these different motivational profiles? Response: We have tried to reflect all these very insightful considerations in the following paragraph: p. 23, lines 426-434 “In the present study, coping was the strongest and somewhat selective predictor of disordered gaming scores among both adults and adolescents. This result is in accordance with previous studies in which escape/coping motives presented the highest association with disordered gaming [48-50,52,53,59,77] and with problematic substance use and gambling [22-27]. This motive appears to be especially relevant in the presence of psychological problems and environmental stressors, such as depression and anxiety symptoms [50, 54-56] or stressful life events [78]. Accordingly, motivation for escape or relief from negative mood constitutes an important criterion for the diagnoses of IGD [5] and other addictions in the DSM-5 [3] Minor Points: Done Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response To Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240726.r002
23 Sep 2020 Decision Letter - Francesca Chiesi, Editor PONE-D-20-12358R1 The development and validation of the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ibáñez, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the issues detailed below (see Additional Editor Comments). Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 07 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors: I appreciate the strength of the paper and I believe that the changes made in response to the reviewer’s comments contributed to improve it. However, I have a minor comment about the scales you used to measure disordered gaming. You employed two different scales in Study 2 and Study 3, so I believe that this point deserves some explanation. Could you motivate your choice? Did this choice have an impact on your results? Additionally, was the Gentile’s scale validated in Spanish (as the IGD-20 )? If not, how do you translate it? [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240726.r003
Revision 2
29 Sep 2020 Author Response Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors: I appreciate the strength of the paper and I believe that the changes made in response to the reviewer’s comments contributed to improve it. However, I have a minor comment about the scales you used to measure disordered gaming. You employed two different scales in Study 2 and Study 3, so I believe that this point deserves some explanation. Could you motivate your choice? Did this choice have an impact on your results? Additionally, was the Gentile’s scale validated in Spanish (as the IGD-20 )? If not, how do you translate it? Response: Dear Editor: Thanks for your comments. We employed different scales to measure disordered gaming in each study because of the sample’s age. The scale used in the adolescent sample of Study 2 was originally developed for the assessment of gaming disorders in youths aged from 8 to 18 years (see Gentile, 2009), and validated in Spain with an adolescent sample (the mean age of the validation sample in Spain was 14,29 years old; see López-Fernández et al., 2020). In the sample of young adults of Study 3, we considered a better option to use the IGD-20, originally developed in a sample of young adults (Pontes et al., 2014) and validated two years later in Spain (Fuster et al., 2016) (mean age of the original sample of 26.5 years old, and 26.14 years old in in the Spanish sample). Although these scales somewhat different, both were based on similar DSM criteria, so we consider that this difference in the assessment of gaming disorder would have a limited impact on the results. This idea has been reinforced by the fact that disordered gaming assessed with the different scales have converged in finding that the most important motives for disordered gaming have been coping, social interaction and violent reward (in the same order). In any case, we have added a new limitation: “Five, two different scales was employed for assessing disordered gaming in adolescents and young adults. Although we have found that main motives related to disordered gaming were the same in both samples, some of the differences found between adolescents and young adults could be attributed to the different scales used.” Last, the Gentile’s scale usen in study 2 was validated in Spanish adolescents in a previous study (López-Fernández et al., 2020). Extracted from López-Fernández et al., 2020: “The original 11 items was back-translated… For the study, the participants indicated their frequency of video game-related problems on a 4-point Likert scale (from 0 = “never or almost never” to 3 “almost always or always”) during the last 12 months. According to the parallel analysis run using Monte Carlo PCA (Watkins, 2006), a one-factor structure was obtained with the EFA, where all items presented adequate factor loadings ranging from .49 to .81. Cronbach’s alpha in this sample was .88”. Thus, now we have included this fact in the text as follows: p. 13, lines 248-249 “A Spanish adaptation [9] of a measure especially developed to assess disordered gaming in adolescents [70] was employed”. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response To Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240726.r004
2 Oct 2020 Decision Letter - Francesca Chiesi, Editor The development and validation of the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) PONE-D-20-12358R2 Dear Dr. Ibáñez, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240726.r005
Formally Accepted
15 Oct 2020 Acceptance Letter - Francesca Chiesi, Editor PONE-D-20-12358R2 The development and validation of the Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) Dear Dr. Ibáñez: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Francesca Chiesi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240726.r006

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