Procedural Arguments of Persuasive Games: An Elaboration Likelihood Perspective

The project at hand will apply analytical game design to test effects of procedural rhetoric in persuasive games on their players. An existing and previously tested persuasive game is re-created and iteratively modified to reconfigure different aspects of its procedural rhetoric, e.g. making the experience more or less mentally taxing. By designing four versions of the same game, we aim to provide insight into whether players’ ability to elaborate on a game’s message affects to which degree they are persuaded by either weak or strong procedural rhetoric, following findings in other media based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model.