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
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
26. train: carefully framed as art for adults
• Single physical copy
• Presented at art
galleries, universities
• Always accompanied by
author guiding follow-up
debate
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.