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

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Authors:	Walz Steffen P.
Source:	Level Up Conference Proceedings
	Utrecht: University of Utrecht, November, 2003
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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.

Keywords: Rhetoric of digital games, general rhetoric, psychagogy, digital games, theory of games, game analysis, game design, game design patterns