Game studies has seen an increasing interest in serious games with a persuasive goal. Anyway, empirical research about the impact of these persuasive games is still limited.
This paper aims to advance the field by reporting on an explorative, qualitative study, investigating player experiences. Theoretically, the authors based their research on immersion theory and Calleja’s account of player involvement. They conducted in-depth interviews with twelve participants. The results showed that players experienced the two games in a similar way and highlighted that the games’ narratives had the largest impact on feeling immersed.
The major contribution of this paper is showing that immersion heightened participants’ susceptibility to persuasion within the gaming environment, while adding that the roles of emotion and identification in immersion warrant further research.
http://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/index.php/IJSG/article/view/263/317
