Presence and Heuristic Cues: Cognitive Approaches to Persuasion in Games

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Christiansen Peter
2014 DiGRA '14 - Proceedings of the 2014 DiGRA International Conference

Just as rhetorical arguments can be embedded within the structure of a game's logic, so too can heuristic cues. In this paper, I argue for persuasive game design based upon using the technological affordances of videogames as a medium to trigger specific heuristic cues, thereby allowing game designers to create games that are able to evoke the necessary amount of systematic cognitive processing to promote long-term attitude change among players of the game. This approach is based upon the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) of cognition, as well as the MAIN (Modality, Agency, Interactivity, and Navigability) model of technological effects.

 

Thanatogaming: Death, Videogames, and the Biopolitical State

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Christiansen Peter
2014 DiGRA '14 - Proceedings of the 2014 DiGRA International Conference

In response to the rise of the biopolitical state, which derives power from its ability to “make live” and “let die,” some scholars have argued that death itself can serve as a form of resistance to biopower. As virtual worlds become increasingly intertwined with the physical world, the concept of in-game death can have rhetorical force to resist both physical and virtual biopower. This paper draws on examples of death as resistance with in the virtual worlds of America's Army and World of Warcraft.