Delightful identification & persuasion: towards an analytical and applied rhetoric of digital games


Walz Steffen P.
2003 DiGRA '03 - Proceedings of the 2003 DiGRA International Conference: Level Up

This article discusses first steps towards a specific rhetoric of digital games where general rhetoric makes up the scientific discipline of strategic communication and symbolic action by means of identification and psychagogy. Therefore, this work contributes to the fundamental and general question why and how players become consubstantialised and persuaded with game designs, and stick to gameplay these games. Accordingly, a first conceptual model is introduced and discussed. It features three interrelating dimensions which engage a symbolic, a structural, and a systemic coupling between player and game design during gameplay within an experiential eigenworld of reciprocal control, mastery, and empowerment.

 

Pervasive Persuasive: A Rhetorical Design Approach to a Location-Based Spell-Casting Game for Tourists


Walz Steffen P. Ballagas Rafael "Tico"
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

REXplorer is a pervasive game service launching in June 2007. The game aims at persuading on site tourists to explore and enjoy the history of the UNESCO world heritage city core of Regensburg, Germany. In the game, historical and mythological spirits are stationed at touristic points of interest throughout the mostly Gothic and Romanesque city core of Regensburg. Players rent a special "paranormal activity detector" - a device composed of a mobile phone and a GPS receiver in a custom designed shell - at Regensburg's tourist information. Players interact with the location-based and site-specific spirits by performing a gesture, i.e. by waving the wandlike detector through the air in a specified fashion, thus "casting a spell". Situated gestures allow players to evoke and communicate with spirits to receive and resolve quests. With their detector, players can also take pictures, which appear on each player's individually generated souvenir, a weblog. The weblog also maps a player's route, describes spirits a player has encountered, and lists books and deepening URLs for each character and site. In this paper, we focus on the rhetorical approach behind REXplorer, and discuss exemplary formal and dramaturgical persuasive design tactics. These tactics, we believe, can not only help to make "serious" activities such as city exploration and history learning fun and sustainable, but also influence player behavior during pervasively computed and situated gameplay.