Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames [Paperback]

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.

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.

As a University lecturer, I found this book very useful in showing the applications of Bogost's theories (from "Unit Operations" onwards). Some of the examples are better than others, but reading Bogost's work you have the sense that he really "gets it," as in he understands the game-changing (forgive the pun) new ideas behind the culture, audience, and especially the software that makes video games tick, and exactly why they are different from established media like cinema. This book is directly applicable to all sorts of modern media, and although the title has "Games" in it I would recommend this to any person with an interest in modern media theory.

I do agree with the other review that this book can be very thick at times, but my impression is that you are expected to re-read sentences more than once. The words seem to be carefully chosen and parsed for meaning, something I appreciate, even if it doesn't make the book a speedy reader.