Dr. Teresa De la Hera and prof. Dr. Jeroen Jansz (ESHCC) co-edited the book ‘Persuasive Gaming in Context’ together with Joost Raessens (Utrecht University) and Ben Schouten (TU Eindhoven). The book offers a multidisciplinary approach to understanding persuasive gaming, this is, when and how digital games can be used to influence the attitude and behaviour of players.
The rapid developments of new communication technologies have facilitated the popularization of digital games. This has translated into an exponential growth of the game industry in the last decades. As a result, the expansion of the applications shifted from mere entertainment purposes to a great variety of serious purposes. ‘Persuasive Gaming in Context’ critically integrates what has been accomplished in separate research traditions, to offer a multidisciplinary approach to understanding persuasive gaming that is closely linked to developments in the industry.
The contributions to this volume are organized under three pillars, with each pillar amounting to an accumulation of expert knowledge. The first pillar on persuasiveness critically assesses previous and recent theory and research on persuasive gaming and proposes a multidimensional persuasive approach as a theoretical extension that is needed in the contemporary gaming landscape. The second pillar, design, highlights research on design principles, which are understood to be the defining properties of persuasive games. The final pillar on validation incorporates both previous research on effects of persuasive games and the case-based evaluation of new games and their impact.
The book, published by Amsterdam University Press, is available as Open Access.