[This abstract is from the Chinese Game Studies Conference at Ningbo Nottingham University, Spring 2014.]
Applying Hybrid Interactive Rhetorical Engagements in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) to Analyze Multi-Modal Persuasive Interactions: Theoretical and Methodological Implications
Yowei Kang, Kainan University
Kenneth C. C. YANG, The University of Texas at El Paso
The emergence of MMORPGs as a popular game platform has attracted a lot of attention among scholars. However, digital game research has often been criticized for its theoretical and methodological limitations. In this paper, we employed a newly-developed concept, Hybrid Interactive Rhetorical Engagements (H.I.R.E), to analyze a gaming session from The World of Warcraft. H.I.R.E. is a rhetorical concept to examine online persuasive interactions during gameplay as a rhetorical phenomenon. we argued that there are both theoretical and methodological benefits to conceptualize gamers’ gameplay experiences as a rhetorical phenomenon. H.I.R.E. offers a comprehensive analytical tool to examine the important aspect of MMORPGs; that is, gamers’ gameplay experience as a process of rhetorical manipulations and persuasive interactions by all game participants. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.
