| This paper is a qualitative study using the case study approach to examine how virtual goods are sold to children players through online games and the possible influence of this new form of marketing on children as consumers. Academic literature has showed that children gradually develop their cognitive ability, information-processing capacity, persuasion knowledge, and consumption motives throughout childhood. In today's media world, new technology has posed new challenge to children's advocates. Considering the recent emergence of online games targeting children, it is necessary for researchers to continue to examine children's vulnerability as a marketing audience because marketing and advertising can no longer be distinctive in an online game marketing context. In other words, the line between entertainment and persuasion may no longer exist. Thus, how can we indentify persuasive intents and methods when there is no such line? This study can be viewed as the first step to answer this question. Based on the findings of previous research, especially the three knowledge structures pertaining to persuasion proposed by Friestad and Wright (1994), I apply a set of game analysis methods to my case study of an Chinese online game, trying to develop a description of this new form of marketing to children and to assess what children know about such entertainment as a tool of persuasion. |
