Persuasion And Resistance:The Power Of Videogames To Reduce Resistance

This study consists of an examination of the extent to which videogames are an effective communication vehicle in reducing Resistance to persuasive messages. Its purpose is to illustrate the methods by which videogames reduce Resistance. Focus is placed on four major strategies:Addressing Resistance Indirectly, Distracting Resistance, Disrupting Resistance, and Sidestepping Resistance. Notions of protagonists and transportation are also addressed. Gone Home, a first-person exploration game released in 2013, is used as a case study and frames the research.The research method chosen is Internet-assisted sample surveys. Statistical inference is used and respondents are drawn from two populations. The total sample size is 301 individuals-250 who had played Gone Home, and 51 who had not. The null hypothesis is that there is no difference.in the extent to which respondents agree with Gone Home’s persuasive message, between the two populations. The alternative hypothesis is that there is a difference. This research project uses a significance level of 5%, corresponding to a confidence level of 95%. The key finding is that there is a statistically significant difference between the two populations. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. Measures of central tendency and dispersion indicate that playing Gone Home increases the extent to which the user agrees with the persuasive message.Other findings include that Gone Home proved exceptionally adept at Distracting Resistance, while also competently Addressing Resistance Indirectly and Disrupting Resistance. It proved much less successful at Sidestepping Resistance and establishing user identification with the story and characters, though there is evidence that users were still transported into Gone Home’s narrative due to high immersion.