Bogost begins this 3 chapter (5-7) section of the book by setting up three ways of understanding advertising. The demonstrative advertising method directly (verbally) addresses a need of the consumer. The Illustrative method shows, as opposed to tells, the consumer how the product meets the need. And the associative
method has to do with positioning the product as a part of a lifestyle that the consumer would like to be a part of. Bogost briefly recounts the history of the advertising disposition, where, in the pre-television era, advertisements were set up to describe the benefits of the product. This changed during the television era, where commercials would often establish a need and propose to solve it in one action. Bogost even goes so far as to cite analysts who use advertising as a way of relating the consumer to no particular need at all, but to the satisfaction of the purchase to begin with.
This preview enables Bogost to talk about the methods advertisers use towards games, often attempting to transfer the old methods to the video-game environment. Like in many situations, traditional methods of advertising need to be reconsidered when applied to game environments because they no longer deal with a "viewer" somewhat passively staring at 2-D space. Since games involve players in an operationalized space, tapping into procedural rhetorics becomes a key tenant for adjusting products to game environments. As Bogost demonstrates, advertisers often overlook the procedurally of game environments since their model of advertising thinks of consumers in terms of "eyeballs" and the method as simply getting the
product in front of those eyeballs. This methodology often leads to games where product placement is simply included as a facet of the environment, where the simple placement of a 3D coke machine or labeling an item as a certain product will result in a good advertisement.
But Bogost contends that this method of advertising vastly overlooks the underlying procedural rhetorics which, at best, render the ad less useful, and, at worst, render it incredibly inappropriate. This is because the item isn't being used, it is simply a passive part of the environment, and as such, has little in-game significance. The larger issue is that advertisers aren't only used to thinking in terms of "screen time," but also in terms of purchasing that screen time, so that the majority of advertising takes place as a removed element from the content. Bogost nods to product placement as one of the ways that ads do come closer to the procedural (and hopefully demonstrative), but ultimately discusses how even a product placement model is ineffective in games where the product is not used by the player in a way which reveals it's underlying operative qualities.
Bogost then makes the turn to advergames, which are ga
mes built specifically in the name of selling a product. Many of these games, like the product placement model, do a poor job of realizing the procedural nature of the product being sold. For instance, a Mountain Dew Skateboarding game forced players to pick up mountain dew in order to continue through the game. The Mountain Dew did provide the player with "energy" but it was necessary energy, not a choice like drinking the soda would be. Similarly, there have been many games which skin pre-existing games in order to advertise such as Burger Man which was created as an extra element to Super-Size Me. The game was simply a Pac-Man clone, and had little to do with the procedures that were interrogated in the movie.
Since neither a clumsy skin-game nor a poorly placed product placement work very well, Bogost points to several games which exemplify the concept of bringing out the procedural rhetoric. These games usually put the player in control of a complex system, such as a theme park in Roller Coaster Tycoon, or a fast food business in CoCo Ichibanya, or even oral hygiene in Tooth Protectors. While in control of these systems, the player is forced to deal with the underlying procedures of the product, this makes it so the player sees the real benefits of the product in context, which works along with a demonstrative slant to advertising. Through the virtual use of the product, the player has the choice of whether the product will be a good fit for them in their everyday experience, but the important feature is that the game gives the player a glimpse into how that product might relate to the everyday experience in a way that a store or the usual advertisement cannot.
Bogost finishes the section by talking about the criticism of advergames, and the anti-advergames which are used to demystify the effect of advergames. Bogost seems to take the position that the anti-advergames are productive persuasive games, but stays clear of arguing against advergames himself. Clearly, Bogost's perspective is that games are tools for persuasion, and while these persuasive tools can be used to negative ends, they often simultaneously open a space for critical reflection about frequently normalized everyday processes.
No comments:
Post a Comment