Steffen P. Walz
DELIGHTFUL IDENTIFICATION & PERSUASION: TOWARDS AN ANALYTICAL AND APPLIED RHETORIC OF DIGITAL GAMES
Source: DiGRA ’03 – Proceedings of the 2003 DiGRA International Conference: Level Up, 2014 Volume: 2
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.
Digital games, Game Analysis, game design, game design patterns, general rhetoric, psychagogy,Rhetoric of digital games, theory of games