Bogost Ch2 to 4- Persuasive Games Applied To Politics

In my synthesis of chapter 1 I discussed the difference between vividness and procedurally, and I also focused one of my questions toward furthering discussion in this area. Chapter 2 starts off by talking about simulation-esque games Biochem FX and America’s Army. Bogost looks at these games as a model for modeling the “sensory verisimilitude” while forgoing the “political verisimilitude.” To connect the two chapters, we might say that it is dangerous to appeal to a continuum of vividness to explain gameplay simply because it mistakes those vivid environments as politicized ones. Specifically, Bogost points to Biochem FX’s lack of options of who to save once a biochemical disaster strikes. In America’s Army, Bogost interrogates the game’s inability to provoke deeper consideration of the position of the enemy, why the enemy might be fighting for any reason other than being “wicked.” The super realistic physical interaction drives the player to believe, through interpellative effects, that the meanings are similarly “realistic.” Bogost uses this situation to set up the need for procedural rhetoric to be applied to political gaming atmospheres.

The Rhetoric of Failure

Bogost goes on to discuss games which lead the player to fail, and the way that some of these games us procedural rhetoric to make claims about the way political systems work (or more precisely how they don’t work). While some of these systems are simply a replication of an arcade game, where the game gets faster and faster until the player loses, games like September 12 forced players to see that the very system used to correct problems could not succeed. But while this demonstrated effective procedural rhetorics, it wasn’t really a game, because the player couldn’t win.Skinning

Another popular move for political games is the concept of skinning. This occurs when a group takes all the dynamics of an existing video game and simply adds their own images in order to make a point. Much of the time, according to Bogost, these systems do not take advantage of procedural rhetoric, so that a game, at best, calls attention to the cause and at worst misrepresents a complex system of events as a simple process.
In order to define some of this complexity, Bogost refers to cognitive theorist George Lakoff in order to talk about the way metaphors define many of our determinations about the way the world operates. He specifically cites the “strict father” vs. “nurturing parent” points of view, which are some of the standard Lakoff references. These references allow for points of discussion both in the creation of games and in the understanding of the way games work. What might seem at first to be a simplistic “skin” of another game can quickly prove to be a procedural model for a cultural metaphor. This means that the game doesn’t necessarily work according to rules of physics or politics, but that it operates in a way which creates a process out of metaphors.

Bogost specifically mentions this in terms of the game Tax Invaders, which is more or less askin of the old school game Space Invaders. While Bogost initially overlooked the game, upon closer inspection he found that the game embodied the conservative rhetoric of taxation as stealing, and of those that tax as an invasion into the funds of the person. While the game used very simple mechanics and skinned off an existing game, the game was persuasive because it connected so well with the underlying ideology of conservatives to taxation. Carrying this further, Bogost advocates that we keep in mind these underlying frames as we navigate and create the procedural models , as it is easy for a game to involve these metaphors as a seemingly natural order to things. GTA San Andreas becomes exemplified toward the end of the chapter, where Bogost points to the way it fits with the conservative metaphors of the strict father, and how both sides of the political dichotomy could benefit if they could only argue from the viewpoint of these underlying metaphors.

Digital Democracy

In the 4th chapter, Bogost makes the turn toward making games that deal directly with the political process, and how games that take a “film” or “documentary” turn seem to utilize procedural rhetorics. Bogost highlights three simulation games where the user’s decisions drive them to think about the processes necessary to make those decisions. For example, in 9-11 Survivor, the player has to make difficult decisions (if they spawn in an area with decisions) about how to die, though jumping out a window, or other methods. While totally uncomforting, the game provides an definite glimpse into the nature of the tragedy, perhaps one which we still are not yet ready to deal with culturally.

3 Questions
Considering the way that games are structured in terms of metaphors we live by, how might we look at other metaphors in gameplay to find overarching themes? For example, if many games have a “rags to riches” story, do these stories follow Bogost’s characterization of GTA San Andreas? And if so why is this a common game element?

Bogost makes an important distinction in that games are not brainwashing devices. Instead, they simply open the player to a procedural logic which might be difficult to consider in the abstract. But in seeing that the other side’s situation is “logical” is the player not drawn in to consider the opposing side in a way which contemporary society would still consider “brainwash”? Or is this simply an aspect of our polemical attitudes toward politicized debate?

At the end of chapter 2 Bogost nods to Diane Richard’s Political Complexity, which discusses politics using a terminology and empirical modeling from non-linear physics. In what way does the turn to non-linear physics constitute a shift in the underlying metaphors toward more rhetorical ends? In what way can we expand those non-linear models outside of the strictly political realm to include a deeper understanding of communicative systems in general?

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