Online games represent a rapidly growing and competitive global market for technology firms. Games are viewed as places where people can temporarily escape from reality. However, it is unclear how game escapism fosters game experience and game use, thus indicating a research gap. This gap keeps decision-makers (i.e., firms and policy-makers) in the dark regarding how game escapism affects gameplay, thus hindering effective decision-making. To fill this gap, uses and gratification theory is applied to build a model for explaining the mechanism underlying the influence of game escapism and telepresence on game experience and game use. We collect 1347 online gamer responses with which to test the model. The results indicate that game escapism improves all game experiences, while only enjoyment and concentration increase game use. Moreover, telepresence strengthens the impact of game escapism on enjoyment, concentration, and fantasy. Our findings offer insights for decision-makers, enabling them to leverage game mechanisms to either provide or negate the impact of game escapism, thus changing game use. •We examined how game escapism fosters game experiences and game use.•Uses and gratification theory was used to build the research model.•Game escapism enhances enjoyment, control, concentration, and fantasy.•Enjoyment and concentration increase game use.•Telepresence strengthens the impact of game escapism on enjoyment, concentration, and fantasy.