Communicating the Obvious

Abstract

This chapter describes the game design and study of Agents Against Power Waste (AAPW), a large-scale field experiment where a persuasive pervasive game was put to use to influence households' attitudes towards electricity consumption. This game is particularly interesting as, although it was only the children of the family who were playing, the whole family was affected and to some extent forced to take part in the play activity. The style of game design has been called “social expansion” (Montola, Stenros, & Waern, 2009; Montola, 2011).The chapter focuses on how this impacted the psychological process of persuasion in responding families and individuals.