Contextualizing deceit in videogames

Abstract

Persuasive technology and videogames have been tightly connected in order to increase user engagement and potentially altering their beliefs and behavior. In spite of the variety of persuasive strategies employed, deceit has been neglected justified by the negative connotation it benefits from public opinion and media reports. Still, established developers have been stalwart towards the inclusion of deceit asa gameplay mechanic by creating storylines capable of tricking players or giving them the power to deceive in the virtual world. This paper presents a characterization of deceit in videogames. Our aim consisted in identifying the characterizing traits which allow a game to sport deceitful mechanics. We created an online survey, asking players to characterize one of their latest play experiences taking into account characteristics of videogames present in known theories and models as well as some deceitful ones stemming from relevant research. Results suggest that current design trends potentiate the emergence of deceit asa play mechanic and that its prevalence in modern videogames is noteworthy. Our contribution for this domain is reinforced with the provision of a set of relations between game mechanics and how deceit is manifested in light of that characterization, validated through the appropriate statistical instruments.