Improving the Design of Persuasive Games for Complex Systems

Abstract

Persuasive games for complex systems have subtle messages they want to convince stakeholders of the complex system of in question of in order to help them solve certain problems. However, there currently is little known about the persuasive game design principles used in those games to convey the persuasive message, especially how people with different cultural backgrounds perceive the persuasiveness of the persuasive design principles. This paper describes the research executed to determine how Individualists and Collectivists perceive the persuasiveness of 'Comparison between individuals' and 'Comparison between groups', this was done using a combination of a persuasive game for complex systems and storyboards. The results showed that Individualists are persuaded more by 'Comparison between groups' than by 'Comparison between individuals' which was not expected. Further research using another persuasive game for complex system should determine whether this was due to the game or is also valid for other persuasive game for complex systems.