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Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames
An exploration of the way videogames mount arguments and make expressive statements about the world that analyzes their unique persuasive power in terms of their computational properties. Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; they represent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interact with those systems and form judgments about them. In this innovative analysis, Ian Bogost examines the way videogames mount arguments and influence players. Drawing on the 2,500-year history of rhetoric, the study of persuasive expression, Bogost analyzes rhetoric's unique function in software in general and videogames in particular. The field of media studies already analyzes visual rhetoric, the art of using imagery and visual representation persuasively. Bogost argues that videogames, thanks to their basic representational mode of procedurality (rule-based representations and interactions), open a new domain for persuasion; they realize a new form of rhetoric. Bogost calls this new form "procedural rhetoric," a type of rhetoric tied to the core affordances of running processes and executing rule-based symbolic manipulation. He argues further that videogames have a unique persuasive power that goes beyond other forms of computational persuasion. Not only can videogames support existing social and cultural positions, but they can also disrupt and change these positions themselves, leading to potentially significant long-term social change. Bogost looks at three areas in which videogame persuasion has already taken form and shows considerable politics, advertising, and learning.
450 pages, Hardcover
First published June 22, 2007
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1516 people want to read
About the author
Ian Bogost
127 books143 followersIan Bogost is a video game designer, critic and researcher. He holds a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies.
He is the author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games. His game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010.
He is the author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games. His game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
July 23, 2013
I was surprised by the book's focus on procedural rhetoric, meaning persuasion where the game mechanics themselves are intimately tied to the message. Many games with a message use it as essentially a wrapper around the actual, neutral mechanics. Sometimes these can even be at odds with the mechanics, such as the oft-discussed "ludonarrative" dissonance of Bioshock ludo standing for play.
That example in particular points to a weakness of the book: it was originally published in 2007, with some of the chapters drawn from earlier papers published in 2005 and 2006. This seems kind of crazy to fault an old book for being old, but it has a substantive effect on the kind of examples Bogost is able to marshal to describe his ideas. Another glaring absence is the Wii and Kinect from a chapter on "exergames" and other physical inputs. A revised edition is sorely needed, and hopefully Bogost is able to pause writing new books long enough to revisit this one. (There was also an important error I spotted: he claims Counter-Strike has instant respawning, while the whole appeal is its round-based gameplay!)
He spends the first chapter laying down the terms and rules that he's using. This is by far the driest, most academic portion of the book, and I'd encourage you to just power through it to get to the meat. Portions can even be outright skipped, as Bogost is reacting to the milieu of the time, repeatedly making points that are accepted as common-sense today. I can recognize why nailing down your language is necessary to be part of the academic conversation—especially useful in philosophy, which Bogost clearly has some background in—but in most cases, this is best handled within the body of the text itself.
As is, a lot of the examples are pretty dated—but this does have one advantage in allowing you to see through the novelty to the mechanics underneath. I was surprised by the sophistication of Bogost's analysis, especially for games that seem so simple at first glance. He draws in a fair amount of context to contextualize many of these games, which can sometimes misfire as I'd quibble with some of his explanations of the social atmosphere of the time. That said, on the whole they add to the understanding and flesh out his analysis.
That context brings up an important point: while these mechanics substantively work towards the message of the game, there is still some semantic content needed for the player to understand what's going on, in much the same way as looking solely at the code and algorithms wouldn't teach you what's going on. However barebones, the graphics and other elements are necessary for any game to reach beyond itself, and Bogost doesn't quite have any systemic analysis of how those framing elements work.
Perhaps this is expecting too much, but it would have been great to compare how the artistic elements advance the message, rather than solely looking at how the mechanics work to advance them. How does the game focus the player's attention on those salient details? What are some commonalities in how those games are expressive with their feedback? Furthermore, how does this link up with existing theories of visual rhetoric? Bogost raises some or all of those questions in one or two examples, but none get anywhere near the treatment as other issues he raises.
Instead, Bogost spends a lot of time bringing Baidou and Derrida and other continental philosophers (Boo! Hiss!) into his arguments, and for totally unnecessary reasons. I can understand the lure of theory, and have a pretty good grasp on it myself, but it doesn't need to find its way into everything, especially when the referents don't add anything to the story you're telling. Perhaps it lays the groundwork for scholars from those fields to pick up the procedural rhetoric concept and bring it into their work, but that's a task best left to them. The best-case scenario of Bogost drawing from theory is just leaving more surface-area for people to attack his argument; the worst-case, obfuscation.
All that said, overall my impressions were pretty good! I really appreciate Bogost's work for laying the grounds for further game criticism, even if they're limited to just that. And while I will pick on his academic writing style at times, he does a good job of pulling in examples from throughout the history of video games, choosing the ones that most clearly illustrate his ideas. While the text itself certainly needs some revising, the argument itself has grown yet stronger with time, and that's my biggest takeaway.
That example in particular points to a weakness of the book: it was originally published in 2007, with some of the chapters drawn from earlier papers published in 2005 and 2006. This seems kind of crazy to fault an old book for being old, but it has a substantive effect on the kind of examples Bogost is able to marshal to describe his ideas. Another glaring absence is the Wii and Kinect from a chapter on "exergames" and other physical inputs. A revised edition is sorely needed, and hopefully Bogost is able to pause writing new books long enough to revisit this one. (There was also an important error I spotted: he claims Counter-Strike has instant respawning, while the whole appeal is its round-based gameplay!)
He spends the first chapter laying down the terms and rules that he's using. This is by far the driest, most academic portion of the book, and I'd encourage you to just power through it to get to the meat. Portions can even be outright skipped, as Bogost is reacting to the milieu of the time, repeatedly making points that are accepted as common-sense today. I can recognize why nailing down your language is necessary to be part of the academic conversation—especially useful in philosophy, which Bogost clearly has some background in—but in most cases, this is best handled within the body of the text itself.
As is, a lot of the examples are pretty dated—but this does have one advantage in allowing you to see through the novelty to the mechanics underneath. I was surprised by the sophistication of Bogost's analysis, especially for games that seem so simple at first glance. He draws in a fair amount of context to contextualize many of these games, which can sometimes misfire as I'd quibble with some of his explanations of the social atmosphere of the time. That said, on the whole they add to the understanding and flesh out his analysis.
That context brings up an important point: while these mechanics substantively work towards the message of the game, there is still some semantic content needed for the player to understand what's going on, in much the same way as looking solely at the code and algorithms wouldn't teach you what's going on. However barebones, the graphics and other elements are necessary for any game to reach beyond itself, and Bogost doesn't quite have any systemic analysis of how those framing elements work.
Perhaps this is expecting too much, but it would have been great to compare how the artistic elements advance the message, rather than solely looking at how the mechanics work to advance them. How does the game focus the player's attention on those salient details? What are some commonalities in how those games are expressive with their feedback? Furthermore, how does this link up with existing theories of visual rhetoric? Bogost raises some or all of those questions in one or two examples, but none get anywhere near the treatment as other issues he raises.
Instead, Bogost spends a lot of time bringing Baidou and Derrida and other continental philosophers (Boo! Hiss!) into his arguments, and for totally unnecessary reasons. I can understand the lure of theory, and have a pretty good grasp on it myself, but it doesn't need to find its way into everything, especially when the referents don't add anything to the story you're telling. Perhaps it lays the groundwork for scholars from those fields to pick up the procedural rhetoric concept and bring it into their work, but that's a task best left to them. The best-case scenario of Bogost drawing from theory is just leaving more surface-area for people to attack his argument; the worst-case, obfuscation.
All that said, overall my impressions were pretty good! I really appreciate Bogost's work for laying the grounds for further game criticism, even if they're limited to just that. And while I will pick on his academic writing style at times, he does a good job of pulling in examples from throughout the history of video games, choosing the ones that most clearly illustrate his ideas. While the text itself certainly needs some revising, the argument itself has grown yet stronger with time, and that's my biggest takeaway.
March 15, 2023
Brands need to make advertising video games again, let me play a Taco Bell branded platformer.
April 1, 2013
This books made a very valuable contribution by introducing the concept of procedural rhetoric (explained below), but overall I was not too impressed with it. The writing was meandering and got frequently sidetracked. For example, in one case the book devoted a paragraph to explaining that an organization which had adopted the term "serious games" did not cite an earlier work which introduced the term, but the authors of the organization's report might regardless have been indirectly influenced by that earlier work, because they had read another work which had cited the original. Such digressions are common in this book, and while there were definitely interesting chapters - particularly the ones on education - there were also extended moments when I was just reading on in the hopes of the author eventually saying something valuable again. I'm glad that I finished the book, but I almost didn't.
----
We are all familiar with the term rhetoric as it is applied to spoken arguments (verbal rhetoric), and today's media also uses pictures of various kinds to compel and persuade (visual rhetoric). Computer games have the potential to be used as procedural rhetoric. What's that?
One way of defining a game is as a collection of rules that define various consequences for the actions that a player takes. Shoot at the alien, the alien loses hit points and gets angry at you. Thus, when somebody plays a game, they are placed in a microcosm where the laws of cause and effect have been defined by the designer of the game, and they need to learn and internalize those laws in order to succeed at the game. In effect, the game designer can be seen as making a statement about the kinds of causal laws that exist, and the player comes to understand that position via their own experience, having discovered and experienced the laws for themselves.
Now the causal laws of many video games are mostly only applicable within the video game itself, and few people think of applying them in any other context. But games could present broader arguments. One of Bogort's examples is The McDonald's Videogame, in which
Presumably, the game designers hope that by playing the game, the player comes to see the laws of cause and effect that push corporations towards unethical behavior by sometimes making it more profitable than ethical behavior. Having personally experienced a situation where those laws operated, the player can apply their experience more generally, and start to be more suspicious about the behavior of not only McDonald's, but any corporation which is operating under similar laws of cause and effect. Of course, the player may reject the argument and feel that the position that the game designers are advocating is a flawed one - but that is the case with all rhetoric.
----
We are all familiar with the term rhetoric as it is applied to spoken arguments (verbal rhetoric), and today's media also uses pictures of various kinds to compel and persuade (visual rhetoric). Computer games have the potential to be used as procedural rhetoric. What's that?
One way of defining a game is as a collection of rules that define various consequences for the actions that a player takes. Shoot at the alien, the alien loses hit points and gets angry at you. Thus, when somebody plays a game, they are placed in a microcosm where the laws of cause and effect have been defined by the designer of the game, and they need to learn and internalize those laws in order to succeed at the game. In effect, the game designer can be seen as making a statement about the kinds of causal laws that exist, and the player comes to understand that position via their own experience, having discovered and experienced the laws for themselves.
Now the causal laws of many video games are mostly only applicable within the video game itself, and few people think of applying them in any other context. But games could present broader arguments. One of Bogort's examples is The McDonald's Videogame, in which
The player controls four separate aspects of the McDonald’s production environment, each of which he has to manage simultaneously: the third-world pasture where cattle are raised as cheaply as possible; the slaughterhouse where cattle are fattened for slaughter; the restaurant where burgers are sold; and the corporate offices where lobbying, public relations, and marketing are managed. In each sector, the player must make difficult business choices, but more importantly he must make difficult moral choices. In the pasture, the player must create enough cattle-grazing land and soy crops to produce the meat required to run the business. But only a limited number of fields are available; to acquire more land, the player must bribe the local governor for rights to convert his people’s crops into corporate ones. More extreme tactics are also available: the player can bulldoze rainforest or dismantle indigenous settlements to clear space for grazing (see figure 1.1). -- Persuasive Games, Kindle Locations 721-728
Presumably, the game designers hope that by playing the game, the player comes to see the laws of cause and effect that push corporations towards unethical behavior by sometimes making it more profitable than ethical behavior. Having personally experienced a situation where those laws operated, the player can apply their experience more generally, and start to be more suspicious about the behavior of not only McDonald's, but any corporation which is operating under similar laws of cause and effect. Of course, the player may reject the argument and feel that the position that the game designers are advocating is a flawed one - but that is the case with all rhetoric.
June 17, 2013
"My rationale for suggesting a new rhetorical domain is the same one that motivates visual rhetoricians. Just as photography, motion graphics, moving images and illustrations have become pervasive in contemporary society, so have computer hardware, software, and video games. Just as visual rhetoricians argue that verbal and written rhetorics inadequately account for the unique properties of visual expression, so I argue that verbal, written, and visual rhetorics inadequately account for the unique properties of procedural expression. A theory of procedural rhetoric is needed to make commensurate judgements about the software systems we encounter every day and to allow a more sophisticated procedural authorship with both persuasion and expression as its goal"
Caveat lector: this book is heavy, but Ian Bogost knows his shit. His examples are comprehensive and wide-ranging. The argument is divided into three sections: Politics, Advertising and Learning, all of which are insightful into not just gaming as an industry, but where and how that industry intersects with entertainment, education and commerce. It was published in 2007, but the theory heaviness keeps it relevant. Best cultural criticism I've read this year.
Caveat lector: this book is heavy, but Ian Bogost knows his shit. His examples are comprehensive and wide-ranging. The argument is divided into three sections: Politics, Advertising and Learning, all of which are insightful into not just gaming as an industry, but where and how that industry intersects with entertainment, education and commerce. It was published in 2007, but the theory heaviness keeps it relevant. Best cultural criticism I've read this year.
November 26, 2020
The quality of the argument here is good (if surprisingly naive), and a surprising amount still holds up. Unfortunately, the writing is simply poor – unnecessarily digressive and opaque.
(Sidenote: I had to laugh when Bogost suggested a advergame about pissing in a toilet might prompt the player to reflect upon the purpose of alcohol and bars and life in general. I mean – come on, man.)
(Sidenote: I had to laugh when Bogost suggested a advergame about pissing in a toilet might prompt the player to reflect upon the purpose of alcohol and bars and life in general. I mean – come on, man.)
May 20, 2014
Thoughtful application of the ideas of rhetoric onto the medium of videogames, looking at how we can talk about rhetoric in the context of gaming, but also breaking down a number of games in this way in order to better understand what they are saying it, why they are doing it, and how this is accomplished. By this point, this book is a must-read. Unfortunately, it's too dry, explaining too much of simple concepts at times (the history of rhetoric was really frustrating, as well as unhelpful for the points being made) and other times leaving important areas unexplored. Be prepared to fall asleep reading dull passages if you pick this up, but, simultaneously, be prepared for some thoughtful examinations of a medium too often dismissed as thoughtless.
May 21, 2011
Would have been more helpful, to my research at least, if he had focused more equally on commercial games and not only "serious" games. Notable scholars in videogame and learning theory discussed with an illustration of their points. Well-written for a scholarly text, just wish it had been a little easier to digest... was pretty stiff at points.
October 29, 2007
too dry, too academic. couldn't get into it. it spent pages exploring etymology of various words, seriously. probably great as an academic text but not sufficiently interesting to hold my interest.
January 8, 2021
It's easy to see the appeal of this fine book on videogames. I hope you, gentle reader, have had some rewarding experiences with PlayStation or Xbox, or what have you. But more to the point, how about reading an explanation for the uses of videogames? Let's take a quick glance at Ian Bogost's 2007 text, Persuasive Games.
The author begins, like so many other writers, by providing an illustration of what concerns him in his text. Some years ago now, a game was created titled Tenure, a game that models a novice high school teacher's first year in the classroom. The goal of the game is a renewed contract. Many minor issues pose challenges, such as dismissing class on time or returning homework assignments. Bogost's contribution to rhetoric comes in here. He has a term of art to express his core idea, "procedural rhetoric." This is a form of persuasion, the focus of traditional oratory and rhetoric. We are surrounded by rhetoric in sales, religion, politics, and social media. Procedural rhetoric is a unique type of persuasion. Let's see what the author has in mind.
Here is how the definition is set up to do the work it needs to do throughout the text. Procedurality is the activity of creating, explaining and understanding processes. Just to take an example I'm familiar with, running a school or running a community require "procedures." Running any business requires proper procedures. A system of justice is burdened with countless procedures. Sometimes getting a hearing takes five years. So much for procedures. Now let's use the term "rhetoric," understood in this context to be the activity of persuading others to do or believe something. Any account of conversion to a religion, for example, will require some persuasive juice. There has to be something at stake, something valuable, even if it's only that one wishes to avoid being burned at the stake. Now, put the two together: there are ways to persuade others of something by the manner in which procedures are conducted. For Bogost, the games are persuasive through their procedural protocols.
The author begins, like so many other writers, by providing an illustration of what concerns him in his text. Some years ago now, a game was created titled Tenure, a game that models a novice high school teacher's first year in the classroom. The goal of the game is a renewed contract. Many minor issues pose challenges, such as dismissing class on time or returning homework assignments. Bogost's contribution to rhetoric comes in here. He has a term of art to express his core idea, "procedural rhetoric." This is a form of persuasion, the focus of traditional oratory and rhetoric. We are surrounded by rhetoric in sales, religion, politics, and social media. Procedural rhetoric is a unique type of persuasion. Let's see what the author has in mind.
Here is how the definition is set up to do the work it needs to do throughout the text. Procedurality is the activity of creating, explaining and understanding processes. Just to take an example I'm familiar with, running a school or running a community require "procedures." Running any business requires proper procedures. A system of justice is burdened with countless procedures. Sometimes getting a hearing takes five years. So much for procedures. Now let's use the term "rhetoric," understood in this context to be the activity of persuading others to do or believe something. Any account of conversion to a religion, for example, will require some persuasive juice. There has to be something at stake, something valuable, even if it's only that one wishes to avoid being burned at the stake. Now, put the two together: there are ways to persuade others of something by the manner in which procedures are conducted. For Bogost, the games are persuasive through their procedural protocols.
September 17, 2025
One of the seminal, academic books on the topic you can quote endlessly.
The important power here being "quote endlessly", because it seems to be overly dense, _super academic_ and needlessly complex on purpose: most of the thoughts are elaborated for four to five pages to be summed up then in three sentences. This would make sense for the crucial topics of the book, but when majority of the things get the same treatment its not great.
The problem is also in selection bias for the games: we will meet mostly _serious_ games, with some preference for the serious games done by the author. Is that a problem? Not really. It is a feature that can be interesting if kept in mind, it might be quite deceiving for people without the context.
The important power here being "quote endlessly", because it seems to be overly dense, _super academic_ and needlessly complex on purpose: most of the thoughts are elaborated for four to five pages to be summed up then in three sentences. This would make sense for the crucial topics of the book, but when majority of the things get the same treatment its not great.
The problem is also in selection bias for the games: we will meet mostly _serious_ games, with some preference for the serious games done by the author. Is that a problem? Not really. It is a feature that can be interesting if kept in mind, it might be quite deceiving for people without the context.
December 15, 2023
This book presents some very fascinating ideas and some pretty outdated examples with which to support those ideas. Bogost does a great job at explaining the mechanics, application, and relevance of procedural rhetoric, which is one of those concepts that is so universal that it can be applied to a huge number of games. However, his examples are, by contrast, fairly restrictive - exercise games aren't nearly as popular now as they were in the time of the Wii Balance Board. A second edition with updated thoughts about and applications of procedural rhetoric would be very welcome.
October 6, 2025
It's been a while since I read a heavy academic text like this. I realized that my interest in data visualizations and simulations was built from the same broader interest in what Bogost calls the rhetoric of procedure. I like the idea of creating a system that helps explain the world, and while Bogost explores those concepts through the lens of large video games and their complex systems, I think it also applies to the little simulations and interactive elements that sometimes appear in, like, NYT features.
July 7, 2022
Droga dura hablando de la retórica procedimental de los videojuegos persuasivos y como atraen a los jugadores. También habla mucho de videojuegos políticos, advergames (para empresas) con muchos ejemplos.
August 10, 2024
This book remains both fresh and insightful, even 17 years after its publishing. Bogost's resources and critiques are all relevant and useful, and his idea of procedural rhetoric is of great help to anyone thinking in-depth about systems of any kind, obviously including games. It's also quite encouraging to read this book with hindsight, as several games since 2007 have realized Bogost's visions of games successful in terms of harnessing procedural rhetoric for a particular experience, such as Portal, Dark Souls and quite a few more. (Though it's worth noting such games existed before this book, too.) His bias towards procedure may be somewhat reductive for the games he analyzes, as the procedural element is often not as pronounced as he emphasizes in some cases, but he still does a decent job of acknowledging the other types of rhetoric at play in most of these cases and rigorously explaining both the usefulness and the limits of his own standpoint.
March 17, 2017
One of the foundational books for exploring the rhetorical possibilities of a ludic language.
Read
April 21, 2025as of pg 64: so far l'intro est juste une version plus longue de son texte plus court que j'ai déja lu. which i don't mind du tout! déja plusieurs choses d'ajoutées (i.e. talking about Serious Games, aka war games, v excited to read more about it)
June 6, 2015
I hate reviewing books like this, because there is some important content here and it is going to be super useful for my research. However, this book falls into the trap that a lot of academic books fall into - it simultaneously presents the intro and lit review as if the reader has zero context, thus making ~1/3-1/2 of the book skimmable for its real audience, who is there for the rest of the content that would be esoteric to the uninitiated. There are a lot of good academic books out there that do away with the bloated lit review completely, or at least go through it very quickly.
I also disliked how much geography of the book was spent on games made as advertisements by non gaming companies versus games made by gaming companies. The parts about GTA, Animal Crossing, and the Sims were way more interesting to me and I feel like they would be way more relevant to any researcher reading this, but I guess talking about bigger budget games with much more nuance than COLD STONE CREAMERY: STONE CITY is more difficult both for the writer and reader.
THAT SAID, this is a very good portrayal of the myriad ways video games make an argument (the rhetoric of video games, basically) and the concept of procedural rhetoric is laid out clearly and is useful for anyone interested in game studies.
I also disliked how much geography of the book was spent on games made as advertisements by non gaming companies versus games made by gaming companies. The parts about GTA, Animal Crossing, and the Sims were way more interesting to me and I feel like they would be way more relevant to any researcher reading this, but I guess talking about bigger budget games with much more nuance than COLD STONE CREAMERY: STONE CITY is more difficult both for the writer and reader.
THAT SAID, this is a very good portrayal of the myriad ways video games make an argument (the rhetoric of video games, basically) and the concept of procedural rhetoric is laid out clearly and is useful for anyone interested in game studies.
June 4, 2016
Jakoby dobrý, pěknej přehled toho jak mohou (to je důležité) fungovat hry a cenná první kapitola o procedurální rétorice (jejíž střípky se různými slovy vrací v celém zbytku), ale mohlo to být IMO o polovinu kratší (možná jsem malej akademik ale):
- historický úvody do pojmů jako je "rétorika "reklama" a tak by být úplně nemusely, zvlášť když to po dvou stranách Bogost stejně ve dvou větách věcně shrne
- vyčerpávající to není ani z hlediska žánrů, bogost se věnuje hlavně tzv. serious games (občas probleskne GTA nebo Deus Ex), které přece jen nepatří do hlavní mainstreamové produkce. A podezřele často si přihřívá vlastní polívku když analyzuje hry co pro někoho někdy navrhoval
- palec za Jeana Baudrillarda v kapitole o reklamě, doteď váhám, jestli je Disneyland hra simulakrum 4. řádu
- editora na něj, Bogost tak trošičku trpí tím akademickým nešvarem "říkáme jasné věci velmi složitě". jasně. někdy to nejde. Ale přece není tak těžký místo metanalýzy Alana Badiou a jeho teorie situace (přiznávám, že na mé nechuti to číst se podepsalo i to, že jsem za 3 dny přečetl celou knihu kvůli studiu) napsat, že hry teda otevírají prostor pro přemýšlení nad tím, co by nás bez simulované situace ani nenapadlo.
Ale kolem a kolem je to docela rozumný exkurz do způsobů, kterým hry fungují a dobrý základ pro věcnější přemýšlení už o konkrétních vlivech v konkrétních titulech.
- historický úvody do pojmů jako je "rétorika "reklama" a tak by být úplně nemusely, zvlášť když to po dvou stranách Bogost stejně ve dvou větách věcně shrne
- vyčerpávající to není ani z hlediska žánrů, bogost se věnuje hlavně tzv. serious games (občas probleskne GTA nebo Deus Ex), které přece jen nepatří do hlavní mainstreamové produkce. A podezřele často si přihřívá vlastní polívku když analyzuje hry co pro někoho někdy navrhoval
- palec za Jeana Baudrillarda v kapitole o reklamě, doteď váhám, jestli je Disneyland hra simulakrum 4. řádu
- editora na něj, Bogost tak trošičku trpí tím akademickým nešvarem "říkáme jasné věci velmi složitě". jasně. někdy to nejde. Ale přece není tak těžký místo metanalýzy Alana Badiou a jeho teorie situace (přiznávám, že na mé nechuti to číst se podepsalo i to, že jsem za 3 dny přečetl celou knihu kvůli studiu) napsat, že hry teda otevírají prostor pro přemýšlení nad tím, co by nás bez simulované situace ani nenapadlo.
Ale kolem a kolem je to docela rozumný exkurz do způsobů, kterým hry fungují a dobrý základ pro věcnější přemýšlení už o konkrétních vlivech v konkrétních titulech.
November 18, 2013
Bogost makes a lot of novel, useful points here: about videogames in general, and about them as a medium for conveying opinionated, directed, persuasive messages. It's another book of his that has taught me specific points and also made me think about games in slightly different ways.
However, I must rate it somewhere around 3-3.5 because of the rather overwritten, nearly philosophy-parodying style. References to numerous philosophers classical and modern, from Aristotle to Lacan, abound. They're sometimes handy, but mostly they seem like an artificial boosting of the book's credibility. For my part, I found that Bogost's own words did that just fine, and the digressions into more general matters of philosophy distracted me.
Still, a very good book for anyone interested in the medium of videogames.
However, I must rate it somewhere around 3-3.5 because of the rather overwritten, nearly philosophy-parodying style. References to numerous philosophers classical and modern, from Aristotle to Lacan, abound. They're sometimes handy, but mostly they seem like an artificial boosting of the book's credibility. For my part, I found that Bogost's own words did that just fine, and the digressions into more general matters of philosophy distracted me.
Still, a very good book for anyone interested in the medium of videogames.
November 11, 2013
I enjoy Ian Bogost's writing, so perhaps I was expecting too much from this book. It presents an intriguing concept of procedural rhetoric, but much of the book feels like filler as Bogost describes in detail various things tangentially related to the subject, while at the same time failing to deeply elaborate on procedural rhetoric. It was enjoyable, but it should have been a long essay rather than a book.
January 3, 2015
Slow going at times but the final chapter's critique of our current age's obsession with assessment and how it expects all art to serve institutional purposes is so spot on, that it's with the price of admission alone. Transcends games and is in fact about all things procedural, which makes it super relevant for makers in all media, today.
August 9, 2014
It presented a number of interesting arguments and case studies that are a strong addition to the "games-as-art" literature. I particularly enjoyed the part about the disconnect between conservatives criticizing Grand Theft Auto, and the conservative values that can actually be found in Grand Theft Auto.
June 23, 2015
Worth reading for the first and last sections alone. A little too much time is spent detailing projects that the author worked on outside of the book, but the concept of "procedural rhetoric" is so useful that I didn't really mind.
The book itself is also useful for bludgeoning small animals (it's really thick).
The book itself is also useful for bludgeoning small animals (it's really thick).
Currently reading
September 11, 2008And another book falls victim to the ever-present threat of the Vicious Undergrad. Come on guys, classes haven't even started yet - can you at least let me finish this before recalling it? I'm really enjoying it, too.
Bookmark p.112 - will continue as soon as I get the book back.
Bookmark p.112 - will continue as soon as I get the book back.
October 18, 2015
i avoided this book for a while because I thought it would be fairly simple and straightforward. Turns out, I was right - but it was also packed full of interesting examples, rigorous definitions, and tons of great argument fuel.
January 6, 2014
An overall disappointing read, the main argument is articulated well but much is lost in the zigzag between commercial & serious games and discussions of advertising & marketing. Bogost is a fine writer and thinker, I was expecting a much tighter piece.
April 6, 2014
I loved this explanation of how video games work on more than one rhetorical register and in particular, the special role that procedural rhetoric plays. My favourite section was the exposition on Animal Crossing. It had me in fits of laughter. Loved it.
Read
February 24, 2008I'm in the midst of reading this for an interactive multimedia class. So far it reminds me a lot reading literary theory in undergrad. I can't say I'm excited...
April 20, 2009
I just couldn't get into it. I'm a game designer and everything. Way too dry, waaaay too much defining of terms at the beginning. Only for the academic set I'm sorry to say.
November 28, 2010
Some great insights, but pretty academically written.
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