Do you play Video Games only for fun?
Remember the first video game you’ve played in your childhood or adolescence life…!
What did actually make you play that game? Was it just for fun, or to pass out your time, or because it was simply a trend on those days and the people who played the game were known to be “cool”?
Imagine, instead of learning boring subjects by listening to the teacher you get to play a video game! Imagine, instead of listening to a preach constantly saying that you must act like this and think like that, you feel the same message by playing a video game! Imagine, you get a prize, a discount, or a bonus just because you played that game!
Well, stop imagining, that era has already come!
Initially, video games were mainly used as a medium for entertainment purposes by the general population, specially the youngsters. Nowadays, however, the usage of video games extends into many more contexts with the help of technological advancements and research. People have tried and still try to combine different aspects of problems raised among the society with gaming, and thereby bring out solutions to those problems through human interactions with video games. For example, video games are being used to provide interactive education in a more effective way for young people. Instead of playing a game just for fun, they get to learn subject areas by simply interacting with a video game!
New trends show that video games are also being used to persuade a person’s thoughts towards a certain context. Meaning, that games are able to change, reinforce or shape a person’s attitude or behavior. Whoa! These kind of applications are known as Persuasive Games.
According to B. J. Fogg, the term “persuasive technology” refers to “any interactive computing system designed to change people’s attitudes or behaviors”. Recently, this technology has been adopted into the video gaming context, where video games have been designed to change people’s attitudes or behaviors and thereby make the players have effects in the real world!
Persuasive Games can be divided into two types namely,
- Serious Games
- Advergames
Serious Games
According to David Whatley, a Serious Game is any game that is “not specifically entertainment, but which uses entertainment or the techniques and processes of the entertainment business, to achieve a purpose.”
Serious games have been developed for different domains which includes learning, public policy, social activism, therapy, business, and health and safety.
One example of a serious game is America’s Army, which was developed in collaboration with the United States Army. It reflects army culture and values, and is used as a recruitment tool.
Another example of a Serious Game is September 12th. This is a simple but compelling web based Flash game which uses a simulation mechanic to express one view of how civilians become terrorists, and the general spread of terrorism. The game tries to understand the viewpoint of the two populations: civilians and terrorists. This is a game with journalistic purposes (Newsgame).
Darfur is Dying is another web-based Flash simulation game which can be categorized as a Serious Game. Co-developed by MTV, Reebok, and students from the University of Southern California, the game’s goal is to ensure that the village camp survives 7 days and it highlights some of the hardships faced by refugees of Darfur.
Another two Serious Games funded by the US military are Virtual Iraq and Tactical Iraqi. Virtual Iraq is required to be played in a virtual reality environment. Its aim is to engage it’s players with traumatic combat situations in order to develop healthier trauma coping mechanisms among combat veterans suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Tactical Iraqi on the other hand is a language learning game. This interactive story-based 3D game teaches a “socially realistic” context of Arabic language to US soldiers in combat.
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See commentary about Virtual Iraq:
Advergames
Advergaming is an advertising technique that consists of advertising brands through video games! The intention is to improve relations between companies and the public and thereby reach more users.
Advergames can be defined as “the use of interactive gaming technology to deliver embedded advertising messages to consumers”.
They are mostly used in marketing campaigns as a main and supporting channel of promotion. You might even play one of these video games to earn a discount at a restaurant or earn points for a free product! With traditional advertisements, people often forget about the products after the campaign is over. But advergames stay on users’ devices for much longer.
One example of an Advergame is The Scarecrow, which was launched as a campaign by a restaurant called Chipotle. The game discouraged big factory food which is ultra-processed and mistreatment of animals to process food. It promoted production of healthy and environmentally friendly food for people.
Lego also used the advergame technology along with its legendary plastic construction cubes. The video games encouraged Lego users to interact with both media and share their physical creations on networks.
Being a large multinational company is not always required to create and promote products through advergames. This was proved by a small but thriving doughnut shop in Australia. A championship game named Donut Papi Pop was launched where it’s customers could win a box of free donuts for the best score of the week.
Chex Quest is another advergame created for a cereal brand in the US. The game made company product sales dramatically increase and is still available for download!
KFC Japan once used advergames to inform their customers about the new line of shrimp products (Ebi Shirmp puri product). The food chain saw it as a challenge for KFC users to switch from traditional chicken to shrimp. However the game showed great success and their sales increased by 106% compared to the previous year!
Sneak King is another advergame released by Burger King for the Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. It was a 5 week promotional campaign and 2.7 million games were amazingly sold increasing their quarterly sales by 40%!
Not only can video games support and entertain existing social ideas and cultures, but they can also disrupt and change them by persuading the players’ thinking patterns! According to Ian Bogost, Professor of Interactive Computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology, videogame persuasion already shows considerable potential in the field of politics, advertising, and learning.
So take care when you are playing a video game next time… You might change your mind about certain things! Which can be good… or bad!
References:
- FOGG, B. J. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003
- WHATLEY, D. What’s so serious about game design? The art or the science? Serious Games Summit DC 2005 keynote, 2005
- CHEN, J., AND RINGEL, M. Can advergaming be the future of interactive advertising?, 2001
- INFORMATION SCIENCES INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. Tactical Iraqi. Homepage at http://www.tacticallanguage. com/, 2003. Last accessed 5 December 2007.
- INSTITUTE FOR CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. Virtual Iraq. Homepage at http://www.ict.usc.edu/ content/view/31/84/, 2006. Last accessed 5 December 2007
Images from the Internet.
