Game studies has seen an increasing interest in serious games with a persuasive goal. Yet, 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 in My Life as a Refugee and PeaceMaker, games that address pressing socio-political issues. Theoretically, our research was based on immersion theory and Calleja’s account of player involvement. We conducted in-depth interviews with twelve participants. Our results showed that players experienced the two games in a similar way. With respect to immersion, our results highlight its different aspects by showing that the games’ narratives had the largest impact on feeling immersed. Our participants also experienced ludic, affective, and spatial immersion, which partly deepened their narrative immersion. Finally, we found that perceived realism, narrative depth, and identification contributed to the immersive experience. 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.

中文翻译：

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玩家在说服游戏中的沉浸感

游戏研究显示，对具有说服力目标的严肃游戏的兴趣与日俱增。然而，关于这些说服性游戏的影响的实证研究仍然有限。本文旨在通过进行一项探索性，定性研究，调查玩家在《我作为难民的生活》和《和平创造者》中的游戏体验来推进这一领域，这些游戏解决了紧迫的社会政治问题。从理论上讲，我们的研究基于沉浸理论和Calleja对玩家参与的描述。我们对十二名参与者进行了深入采访。我们的结果表明，玩家以类似的方式体验了这两款游戏。关于沉浸感，我们的结果通过显示游戏的叙述对沉浸感的影响最大，突出了它的不同方面。我们的参与者还经历了荒诞，情感和空间沉浸，这部分加深了他们的叙事沉浸感。最后，我们发现感知的现实主义，叙事深度和认同感为沉浸式体验做出了贡献。本文的主要贡献在于，沉浸感增强了参与者在游戏环境中对说服的敏感性，同时补充说，情感和认同在沉浸感中的作用值得进一步研究。