Intro Persuasion

We are about to talk about sticks again. Friends of mine are posting various articles, and the conversations are circling around the same subject, over and over again. The act of persuasion covers a large thought process, but can be simply said to be getting someone to agree with you. It can be used for good, for evil, or for getting a free milkshake. The problem is that within the last hundred years, persuasion has become an art. This artform is both mundane, and dangerous. The problem is trying to explain what is going on, and what myths are involved. The next two essays will be about how games deal with persuasion, both at a level design, and story design.

Within the wikipedia article we find six different forms of persuasion.

Reciprocity is the idea that if you do something, the other person should do something as well. This is best known in videogames within the fetch quest, or key card movement. The basic idea, is that you need to move forward, or gain an item. The doorway will not open unless you have the proper key.

Oh how these cards haunted my early teens.

You know it also in RPG’s when someone will not help you, unless you give them a specific item. In fact, most games require that you have several items, and people spoken to to gain the reciprocity of moving forward.

Commitment and Consistency is the idea that if you promised to do something, you will. It also means that if you were doing something, you will continue doing it. The overarch of most games follows this form of persuasion. You have a goal, and because you continue to work towards that goal, you also continue to play that game. Small extra goals like gaining Achievments work with that. There is nothing added, but since you were playing the game anyway, and this feels like a way to complete the game more thoroughly, you attempt to gain them.

Social Proof is used within a game to convince your ways of thinking.

You only need to watch the first few moments of this game to get the Social Proof of what needs to be done in Half Life 2. The Combine are evil, you are held down by the foot of these alien beings. This scenario is constantly played out in front of you with the game. You find a group of people rebelling, and then the combine attacks them. You go into a prison, and the Combine are torturing people. The Social Proof is constantly shown to you as a motifier to your own actions that killing the combine is good.

Liking is when you meet a character, and you enjoy their company so much, you agree with them. This is not an attempt to persuade, but to go along. Within Bioshock Infinite, you like the character of Elizabeth, and thus are persuaded to keep her safe. The same works for the Pikmin, and Alyx Vance. Heck, we may even think of the Companionship Cube as a persuasive character. It also works within gameplay. If you liked a specific gaming style -say platformers- then you are more likely to buy another platformers. If you liked a character from that game, you may enjoy a totally different game starring that same character. Hence, Mario has had a long amazing career.

Authority is the call to, or use of authority. So, if someone wants you convinced of an idea, they say the experts on the issue have spoken. During point a click games, like Strong Bad’s Cool Games for Attractive People, you find that if Strong Bad says he needs a specific thing, you spend the game looking for that thing. It is the game -the authority- telling you what to do next. In the new Strider, mission objectives are told to you, and even have arrows pointing in the direction you need to go as a way to persuade you.

I have not completed the game, so an image search was done quickly to not ruin anything.

Scarcity is best shown with things like Rare Drops. You want to build something within a game, be it a piece of armor, a house, or an awesome spell. The problem is that the items needed do not fall every single time you play against an enemy. Only a few bad guys have this item, and either they rarely show up except in one spot, or they rarely drop this item. Either way, you spend hours trying to find that one small item to complete the armor, spell, pancakes, etc.

Persuasion is simply an attempt to convince you to agree to something. For most games it is to continue to play, or to learn how to do something within the game. The wikipedia article shows that there are six forms of persuasion. Reciprocity is like a key card to a door, or a fetch quest. Commitment and Consistency is when you like a style of gaming, and thus continue to play other games like it. Social Proof is when the game tries to convince you that what you are doing is correct. Liking is when dealing with a character that you end up liking, and thus protect. Authority is when the game splashes something onto the screen to tell you your objective. Finally, Scarcity is the rare drops in a game where you end up spending hours either trying to trade for, or hunting for a very specific item.

With this we will be talking about Persuasion within games part by part. The Next article is actually a look at how persuasion is used outside of gaming. We will look at it from a gameplayer’s point of view, and how even those who write about persuasion, are also persuaded. After that, it will be part by part into game play on persuading you to understand and continue playing a game.