Mechanics, Messages, Meta-Media: How Persuasive Games Persuade, and What They Persuade Us Of
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1. Persuasive games use procedural rhetoric through their rules and gameplay to convey particular messages and perspectives to players. However, players can interpret the same game differently based on their understanding. 2. The document examines two games - Train and Playing History 2: Slave Trade - that aimed to persuasively convey the message that blindly following rules without considering people can be dehumanizing. These games were received very differently by audiences despite their similar messages. 3. The document argues that a game's genre, visual framing, and how it travels and is portrayed in media shapes how audiences perceive and interpret the game's intended stance and message. How a persuasive game is framed and circulated in culture can impact
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Mechanics, Messages, Meta-Media: How Persuasive Games Persuade, and What They Persuade Us Of
- 1. mechanics, messages, meta-media How Persuasive Games Persuade, and What They Persuade Us of Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets) Digital Creativity Labs, University of York October 15, 2017
- 4. “Procedural rhetoric is the practice of using processes persuasively …. Each unit operation in a procedural representation is a claim about how part of the system it represents does, should, or could function.” ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 28, 36
- 5. “Rules control the meaning of the game, and players, by following rules, create the meaning that is already predetermined by the designer(s). For the proceduralists, a game means what the rules mean” miguel sicart, against procedurality, 2011
- 6. “The disparity between the simulation and the player’s understanding of the source system it models creates a crisis in the player. I named this crisis simulation fever, a madness through which an interrogation of the rules that drive both systems begins.” ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 332
- 7. “Rather than producing assent, ... the game [Howard Dean for Iowa] produces deliberation, which implies neither immediate assent nor dissent. Like literature, poetry, and art, videogames cannot necessarily know their effects on individual players.” ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 329, 339
- 8. jfk reloaded, traffic games, 2004
- 9. How and why do different players come to different understandings of the same persuasive game? question
- 10. <2> case study
- 11. Blindly focusing on outcomes and following rules (as in gameplay) leads you to dehumanise and ignore the people your actions affect. the (meta-)mechanical message
- 12. game no. 1: train, brenda brathwaite, 2009
- 13. game no. 1: train, brenda brathwaite, 2009
- 15. media responses
- 16. game no. 2: playing history 2: slave trade, serious games interactive, 2013
- 17. game no. 2: playing history 2: slave trade, serious games interactive, 2013
- 18. game no. 2: playing history 2: slave trade, serious games interactive, 2013
- 21. WHY? same rhetoric, opposite reaction
- 22. <3> genres, framings, and travelling meta-media
- 23. What is accepted and expected in … education for children artworks for adults genre framing shapes understanding entertainment games
- 25. controversial topics and subject position: challenging but not unknown … in art
- 26. train: carefully framed as art for adults • Single physical copy • Presented at art galleries, universities • Always accompanied by author guiding follow-up debate
- 27. carefully considered & controlled visual framing
- 28. how train is visually framed
- 29. how train travelled through the media
- 30. how train travelled through the media
- 31. how train travelled through the media
- 32. how train travelled through the media
- 33. ph2: edugame for 8-14 year olds in school • Digital copies • Distributed through Danish schools • Accompanied by educational material for teachers
- 34. how ph2 is visually framed
- 35. released & announced on steam/twitter outside educational context
- 36. educational framing didn’t appear there
- 37. in-game framing didn’t appear in screenshot
- 38. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media
- 39. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media
- 40. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media
- 41. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media
- 42. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media
- 43. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media
- 44. <4> provocation
- 45. games work culturally as travelling meta-media
- 46. games travel culturally as meta-media
- 47. media as iconic tokens for ideas
- 48. demos
- 49. design fictions
- 50. big urban game, 2003
- 51. selling ideas.
- 52. selling themselves as a vehicle.
- 53. selling their creators and commissioners.
- 56. summary 1. Genre and visual framing shape how audiences perceive intended authorial and reader stance toward a game. 2. Games circulate through culture as easily de- and re-framed meta-media, making this framing crucial. 3. Persuasive games may be more impactful as meta-media generating attention and credibility (for their message, their makers, themselves) than as individual player-game encounters.