The effects of a serious game on role-taking and willingness to help [Les effets d'un jeu sérieux sur la prise de rôle et la volonté d'aider]

Abstract

Serious games are emerging as a new medium for social change. This study investigated the influence of presentation mode afforded by different media on willingness to help in the context of humanitarian aid. Two online experiments were conducted. The first experiment demonstrated that playing the Darfur is Dying game elicited greater role-taking and resulted in greater willingness to help the Darfurian people than reading a text conveying the same information. The second experiment deconstructed the variable presentation mode in more detail by adding a game watching condition. Similar results were found such that game playing resulted in greater role-taking and willingness to help than game watching and text reading. Implications for researchers and game developers are also discussed. © 2010 International Communication Association.