“Learning from Bogost”

The 831 class has been learning a lot from Bogost for the last week, but Bogost finally reaches the topic of “Learning” and video games in this final section.

The first chapter (8) addresses the question “Are videogames educational?” (233). There are three approaches to education covered by Bogost: behaviorist, constructionist, and constructivist. As far as applying these educational theories to video games, Bogost begins with Flight Simulator and SimCity; these both take the behaviorist perspective, teaching the ‘basics’ of content through experience. He uses the examples of Ninja Gaiden and Grand Theft Auto as ‘negative’ behaviorist games (or ones that may be construed negatively through a behaviorist view). Sim City also contains constructivist learning principles, teaching “about complexity and other approaches to the general operation of dynamic processes” (240).

In the section “From Programming to Culture,” Bogost brings up the term “procedural literacy” (244). Two programs, LEGO Mindstorms and RAPUNSEL, (one designed for boys and the other for girls) teaches students about procedures and how to read them. Mateas’s definition says that procedural literacy is “the ability to read and write processes, to engage procedural representation and aesthetics…” (245).

Bogost also gives a brief “procedural history” using Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, & Steel (book). Games that couple a procedural rhetoric of ‘material accident’ with a procedural view of history are Civilization (a game we’ve looked at in class) and Europa Universalis.

 To conclude this examination of “procedural literacy” I’d like to use Bogost’s words, “Procedural rhetoric is a type of procedural literacy that advances and challenges the logics that underlie behavior, and how such logics work” (258).

Chapter 9, “Values and Aspirations,” seems in a different vein than the previous one; it doesn’t make use the defined educational theories in relation to video games but examines topics like consumption, work values, morality and faith. Bogost first applies “consumption” (which sounds like a disease) to principles taught to students through American public education. Students are taught how to be effective consumer, mindless drones in society, acquiring possessions and debt. (Here he brings up the difference between schooling and education.) The first game he discusses as ‘consumptive’ is Mansion Impossible, a game which reveals an effective real estate strategy to be investing in one area and “keeping as much capital as possible” invested in the market (266).

Nintendo Gamecube’s game Animal Crossing also effectively displays the issue of consumption (and ‘affluenza’). Some features of the game (Tom Nook’s store, the HRA, etc.) successfully mount a procedural rhetoric of debt, or affluenza (the spiritual emptiness and guilt that accompanies wealth). Other features, such as the animal’s disdain of Tom Nook, the ‘portability’ or evanescence of material possessions (the fact that even large items can be ‘compressed’ into the size of a leaf for transportation), and the museum can cause “increased deliberation about the player’s need for his virtual possessions” (271).

The games Shadow the Hedgehog and Deus Ex return (from Gee) in a section on morality and faith.  For Shadow and Sonic the Hedgehogs, Bogost poses that morality is attempted within the game through ‘arimethic logic.’ Like the more recent Fable series (1, 2 and 3) America’s Army, Black and White, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, good and evil are the only two choices; the player/character’s morality is the sum of good and evil deeds or actions. Deus Ex attempts a different strategy; according to Bogost, it “mounts a procedural rhetoric of moral uncertainty” (286).

Oddly, in the section on ‘Learning,’ a chapter discussing exercise is included. Unfortunately, this book was published in 2007, before the Wii, Xbox Kinect, and PlayStation Move really became functional accessories for current game consoles. He relies primarily on “dance pads” like the Power Pad and the Dance, Dance Revolution pad to make his arguments concerning exergaming. An interesting thing to note is that Bogost uses sports and dance games for the prime examples of exercise games. Even with the advent of the Wii (and the prospective Project Café/Wii U), the Kinect sensor and the PlayStation Move, games that utilize these accessories are either sports, fitness or dance-related. The only example I can find that seems to break out of this pattern is Ubisoft’s new Child of Eden, but even then this game relies heavily on music to push the game forward (as a dance game or possibly even a fitness game would). I also failed to understand what exergames teach players (other than how to dance, exercise, or manipulate controls to get the best results).

Discussion Questions

1. What do exergames teach players? Why do they belong in the “Learning” section of this text?
2. What other educational theories apply to video games? Do the ones mentioned in this section have the “right” to categorize video games (does it fit to categorize video games through these theories)?
3. The idea of procedural literacy is interesting. Is there a way to incorporate it into the games we are creating in Second Life and MineCraft?