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Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames
 
 
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Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames [Hardcover]

Ian Bogost (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Book Description

0262026147 978-0262026147 June 22, 2007

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 computers: 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 potential: politics, advertising, and learning. Bogost is both an academic researcher and videogame designer, and Persuasive Games reflects both theoretical and a game design goals.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Analyzing the power of video games to mount arguments and influence players, Ian Bogost does again what he always does so very well: thoroughly rethink and shake up a traditional academic field - rhetoric - while lucidly building the foundations of a new one - game studies."--James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University



"Bogost's book provides a new lens -- procedural rhetoric -- to use in the analysis of games and an excellent survey of the history of games of this ilk." Steve Jacobs American Journal of Play



"Bogost creates and writes about serious games, seemingly simple diversions that deliver educational political and advertising content alongside entertainment. In Persuasive Games, he offers an academic but accessible introduction to their potential, and it is very meaty reading for anybody interested in where the interactive arts meet real-world topics." Scott Colbourne The Globe and The Mail



"Bogost's book provides a new lensprocedural rhetoric -- to use in the analysis of games and an excellent survey of the history of games of this ilk." Steve Jacobs American Journal of Play



"Whether we call them 'serious games', 'persuasive games', or simply 'video games', it is clear that there is much of rhetorical significance to mine from the electronic representations and interactions that have captivated such a large portion of the world's population. Ian Bogost's book is an excellent step towards understanding and appreciating these materials from an intellectual, critical, and humanistic perspective." Rudy McDaniel Literary and Linguistic Computing

About the Author

Ian Bogost is Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, at Georgia Institute of Technology and Founding Partner, Persuasive Games LLC. He is the author of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames and Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, and the coauthor (with Nick Montfort) of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (2009), all published by the MIT Press.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 464 pages
  • Publisher: The MIT Press (June 22, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0262026147
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262026147
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #466,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi, I'm Ian Bogost. I am a designer, philosopher, critic, and researcher who focuses on computational media--videogames in particular. I'm also an author and an entrepreneur. I am a professor at Georgia Tech (a university), a Founding Partner at Persuasive Games (a videogame studio), and a cofounder at Open Texture (a small media publisher).

Research and Teaching
In my academic life, I am Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

My research focuses on videogames as cultural artifacts. In particular, I'm interested in contextualizng games in the long history of human expression (game criticism), in how games make arguments (game rhetoric), and in the relationship between computer hardware and expression. These three subjects are the respective topics of my recent books: Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism (MIT Press 2006), Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (MIT Press 2007), Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (MIT Press 2009, co-authored with Nick Montfort), Newsgames: Journalism at Play (MIT Press 2010, co-authored with Simon Ferrari and Bobby Schweizer), and How To Do Things with Videogames (University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

Much of my work concerns the uses of videogames outside entertainment, including politics, advertising, learning, and art. But I'm also very interested in mainstream commercial videogames and historical approaches to videogames, as well as experimental, independent, and artistic games. I write frequently in the videogame trade press.

More recently, I've been looking at on the way hardware and software platforms influence creative practice. Nick Montfort and I co-edit a book series on this topic called Platform Studies, and we've written the first book in that series, on the Atari, mentioned above. I'm fascinated to the point of obsession with the Atari, and I often use it in teaching, research, and in my own artistic practice.

Through my work with platforms, I've also developed an interest in new trends in philosophy, particularly speculative realism and object-oriented ontology. My philosophical study of the phenomenology of objects, Alien Phenomenology, will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2012.

Game Design and Development
I am the co-founder of Persuasive Games, an award-winning independent videogame studio that makes games about social and political issues. Our work covers a wide variety of topics not usually found in videogames, including airport security, disaffected copy store workers, global petroleum market, Christmas shopping, tort reform, suburban errands, and pandemic flu. Our games have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally at venues including Laboral Centro de Arte (Madrid), Fournos Centre for Digital Culture (Athens), Eyebeam Center (New York), Slamdance Guerilla Game Festival (Park City), the Israeli Center for Digital Art (Holon) and The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Melbourne).

We also create games for advertising, learning, corporate training, and politics. Our clients have included Dominos Pizza, Cisco, Chrysler/Jeep, and Cold Stone Creamery. We've also focused on "newsgames," a genre that blends videogames with editorial cartoons. In mid 2007 we published games with The New York Times, who ran our games in the op-ed section of their online paper.

Publishing
I'm also a co-founder of a small media publishing company called Open Texture. We are a small, independent publisher of books and media, focusing on new approaches to classic forms. From helping children learn Ancient Greek to bringing poetry to videogames, we're reinventing familiar ideas for the twenty-first century.

We've published an ancient Greek curriculum suitable for anyone, from kids as young as 2nd or 3rd grade up through adults. I leant my voice to the Elementary Greek series, reading the audio companions for all three years of the course.

More recently, we've started publishing independent videogames, starting with my own title A Slow Year. We're particularly interested in bringing work to market that offers an alternative to current trends in digital distribution, focusing instead on the creation of thoughtful, deliberate physical products.

Background
In the past I've worked in financial services, graphic design, advertising, technology, business consulting, and entertainment. I was CTO of an interactive studio in Los Angeles during "Bubble 1.0." Before I settled down to do my dissertation on videogame criticism, I was a scholar of poetry, mostly European modern, contemporary American, and Greek Lyric. I have a Bachelors degree in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California, and a Masters and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UCLA.

 

Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Games as a unique form of rhetoric, May 24, 2010
This review is from: Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (Hardcover)
Bogost's central insight is that games can encode playable representations of situations and even ideas, which supports a unique form of rhetoric, "procedural rhetoric". He argues that this can be (and has been, on occasion) used to make games into a expressive medium that goes far beyond entertainment, and in some ways even beyond other forms of expressive media.

Like other forms of rhetoric, procedural rhetoric is based on representations, but while visual or textual rhetoric merely shows the viewer or reader the representation, procedural rhetoric lets *you* engage with the representation, poking at it and interrogating it, and works its power through that interaction. Bogost covers a number of historical examples of games that make good use of procedural rhetoric to engage with issues ranging from tax avoidance to cold-war brinksmanship, as well as discussing where he thinks fruitful further development lies. On the latter point, he puts his money where his mouth is, so to speak, since he also owns a company that makes persuasive games, on issues ranging from presidential elections to food poisoning.

There are two basic audiences for this book. For those interested in how videogames can move beyond entertainment to other areas, Bogost presents a compelling vision of games as an expressive medium, and points to a wide range of things that can be done by thinking of games as playable representations. For media-studies scholars and rhetoricians, Bogost presents a strong case that procedural rhetoric is indeed rhetoric, but a new kind of rhetoric that existing discussion of film or written rhetoric doesn't quite account for.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars *Invitational* Game Criticism..., August 23, 2007
This review is from: Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (Hardcover)
Although Ian Bogost clearly has a vested interest, as a game designer and critic, in the ability of games to communicate powerful, evocative messages, Persuasive Games seriously challenges some pervasive assumptions behind games, reception and interactivity-- taking a run at how games communicate all the wonderful (or terrible) things they are assumed to communicate. Bogost makes several rather clever moves in this book, including linking the development of a 'procedural rhetoric' to the theorization of visual rhetoric-- of course games use both, but such nitpicking isn't the point of this book. Persuasive Games isn't an instruction manual for making compelling games, but it will start to the kinds of discussions we need to make more compelling games possible.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable for critical evaluation of games and other designed interactions., January 22, 2010
This review is from: Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (Hardcover)
At the heart this book is how phenomena can be expressed, with a bias, though the simulation of said phenomena. Designed processes contain an idea about how their real life counterparts work. These assumptions (conscious or not) carry an implicit point of view analogous to traditional rhetoric. Bogost successfully situates this procedural rhetoric in a historical context that elucidates the nuances with with games and other media make arguments about the way world works. The content is invaluable if you're interested in critically assessing or deconstructing games and other designed interactions.

Most of his examples were enlightening, particularly the ones concerning his game Dean for Iowa, which unintentionally painted political action as a process of human-wealth accumulation removed from any form of actual ideology. Less helpful was his characterization of the infamous escape game as a game that "operationalizes the sensations its services seek to countermand" and how it proceduralizes the "anxiety of office work". I'm far from convinced that any procedural argument here has anything more to do with mountain biking than it does with Klondike bars. This argument struck me as so odd that I'm convinced I misunderstood something.

Personally I found Bogost most interesting when proving details that contextualize his arguments; historical perspectives on rhetoric, educational philosophy, advertising, and even references to old school non-traditional physical input devices that I had never heard of (Joyboard anyone?). On the other hand, I feel like I'm still struggling to get a complete grasp on his concept of a "unit operation", based on the "count as one" concept of Alain Badiou (who I'm less than acquainted with). I'll likely have to pull Unit Operations (also by Bogost) off my shelf for some better grounding.

It can be a little dense in places, but not without cause. (I agree with a previous review that Bogost crafted his points very carefully to make specific statements and avoid ambiguity, however they may require multiple reads to parse). This book contains wealth of condensed and relevant knowledge along with carefully made insights.
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