Bogost's Procedural Rhetoric

Bogost’s first chapter of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames is an extremely heady (theoretical) one. (On a side note: I’m curious why he spells “videogames” as one word and not 2.) The book opens with an explanation of (an ancient) videogame called Tenure, made in 1975, where the goal is to complete a year of teaching and be offered a contract renewal. The strategies for reaching this goal are not strictly teaching the students quality material in a quality way; here Bogost introduces his concept of “procedural rhetoric.”  But due to these terms’ ambiguous natures, he defines each separately. Procedurality places emphasis on the “expressive capacity afforded by rules of execution” (5). It is characterized by “symbol manipulation, the construction and interpretation of a symbolic system that governs human thought or action.”

He spends a section on procedural figures, forms, and genres; two things that fall into these categories are graphical logics and textual logics. As an example of a textual logic, he mentions the game Zork; an interesting game that made a resurgence in the newest Call of Duty game. In Black Ops, when the player enters the screen to choose which mode to play in (Multiplayer, Campaign, Options/Settings, etc.) the character is depicted as in a chair surrounded by television screens in a torture chamber. The character has the ability to get up out of the chair, walk around the screens and in the corner is an old computer that has recreated the game Zork. Neat huh?

Bogost admits that despite all the technological advances that have been made, rhetoric is still associated most commonly with oration and writing (with the privilege placed foremost on speech, then writing, then images. But where are video games?)

Throughout the sections, I have noticed that Bogost does a great job of including both sides of issues. For example, when describing visual rhetoric, he takes the time to discuss the virtues of this subdomain, but confesses that the field has not “lived up to” these possibilities. He does the same with the idea of “digital rhetoric,” explaining that much criticism of this type of rhetoric still focuses on superficial, surface things like “writing on the computer” through blogs, message boards, and email. 

On page 34 Bogost introduces Charles Hill’s “comprehensive continuum of vividness.” I (and Bogost) noticed that video games or anything related to them are not located anywhere on this spectrum. Bogost downplays any significance of the vividness spectrum in relation to video games however, because if a game is very vivid, there is a chance it lacks any rhetoric behind it (take for example Crazy World).

Bogost states on page 40 that “procedural representations do not necessarily support user interaction.” He gives the example of Balance of the Planet, in which the player primarily moves scrolling bar to facilitate changes and then respond. As discussed in class, a game may allow the player to “do anything” but that is not true in the sense that it is only within the parameters of the game. The game “procedurally expresses” itself through these “limitations” (43).

“Persuasive games” is a term Bogost came up with, which he explains deftly in the following section. He must differentiate his idea, though, from previous similar concepts, such as serious games. After providing various definitions of serious (all of which fall short of being applicable to “serious games”) and even attempting to defend (by finding suitable definitions for the word “serious”) the idea of “serious games,” he concludes that serious games undermine the expressive power of video games (59).

Persuasive technology is the next concept on Bogost’s hit list. Also known as captology, Bogost renames this study pioneered by B.J. Fogg “manipulative technology” (62). Fogg’s seven types of persuasive techonology may not explicitly line up with existing institutions (“the Man”), the only way these technologies can function is within these existing structures to serve the organizations’ ends. He accuses Fogg of being unaware of the irony/ideology he lives in and promotes in his study, an ideology where the existing institutions define what is ethical and desirable.

His last real topic is entitled “Black and White Boxes.” Here he explains “black-box analysis,” which is “to watch a program’s effects and extrapolate potential approaches or problems” (62). White or glass-box analysis watches “a program’s effects and identif[ies] actual approaches or problems” within the code (62). He mentions a critic that desires the availability of a game’s code so that players will develop a deeper critical understanding of the game, but Bogost points out that this may not happen. However, video games are too often only considered in a “black-box” format.

Overall, the chapter seems to be an offensive defense. Bogost must defend his idea of “persuasive games” while at the same time putting forth an offensive attack (offense) against all other similar or opposing theories (like persuasive technology or serious games). He seems to criticize every game he uses as an example; he takes on video game critics and anyone else mentioned in his book. Why is he so defensive?

Discussion Questions:

1. Gee seemed to support a form of interactivity in Chapter 7 (The Social Mind). Does Bogost’s opinion of interactivity counteract Gee’s theory?
2. I’m going to return to my conclusion of the blog post. Why is Bogost so defensive?
3. What does Bogost mean when he suggests that “vividness comes not from immersion, but from abstraction” (45)?