The Rhetoric of Video Games

Another way to understand procedural representation is in terms of models. When we build 

models, we normally attempt to describe the function of some material system accurately. Models of all kinds can be thought of as examples of procedural rhetoric; they are devices that attempt to persuade their creators or users that a machine works in a certain way. Video games too can adopt this type of goal; for example, a flight simulator program attempts to model how the mechanical and professional rules of aviation work. But since procedurality is a symbolic medium rather than a material one, procedural rhetorics can also make arguments about conceptual systems, like the model of consumer capitalism in Animal Crossing. Gee argues that modeling allows “specific aspects of experience to be interrogated and used for problem solving in ways that lead from concreteness to abstraction.”25 Games like Animal Crossing demonstrate that such models include, but extend far beyond physical and formal models to include, arguments about how social, cultural, and political processes work as well. 

Another exert from Ian Bogost's 'The Rhetoric of Video games', this gives a clear example of how games can make a statement about the world wether that be commercial or political through the use of procedural rhetoric. It once again uses Animal Crossing as its example, stating that the idea of consumer capitalism is portrayed through the games core aim of upgrading your house. Everytime your character pays the shop owner to upgrade your house that means that you then need more furniture to fill it which means you pay more to the shop keeper, getting in more debt whilst the shop keeper gets a bigger shop and keeps getting richer. Although the game doesn't say anything about the idea of consumer capitalism it makes a point for the audience to think about. This then persuades or makes the audience feel certain emotions about the world that they live in and hence the creation of the ACC community online.

This example has really helped me fully understand the idea of persuasive rhetoric in games and has fueled me to find more examples for my research.


http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/026269364Xchap6.pdf