![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2019\/10\/Tom-Nook.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Bogost\u2019s concept of \u2018procedural rhetoric\u2019 was seen to provide a nuanced approach for thinking about how video games can be textually analysed, while also considering how video games might provide a methodology for analysing texts. The engagement with Oulipo in Bogost\u2019s argument turned the discussion towards esoteric rules, and the legacies of surrealism and absurdism in video games.<\/p>\n
A frequent point of contention was Bogost\u2019s presupposing a singular rational creator of each game, and a singular rational player. Bogost\u2019s lack of reflection on the collaborative creation of games (and the collaborative destruction of them by players creating modifiers), as well as the deliberate or otherwise \u2018irrationality\u2019 of disparate players, was felt to undermine the relationship Bogost tries to trace between creators\/players (although this might stem from the article\u2019s rapid ageing in relation to new technologies).<\/p>\n
The Metroid<\/em> series was discussed as an example of this creative chaos, where the game\u2019s sense of exploration (with a million different ways to reach required items), was responded to by players who found ways to reach these items out of order, thereby \u2018sequence breaking\u2019. In a textual sense, the players evoke the cut-ups of B.S. Johnson and William Burroughs, defying linearity for the sake of creating their own disjointed narrative arcs. Bogost\u2019s article was also seen to oversimplify literature and film, characterising them as linear narrative sequences. We mentioned modernism and the work of JG Ballard as precursors to the kinds of non-linear, self-reflexive playfulness that emerges in contemporary video games. An analysis of the labour put in by players (as the line between producer\/consumer becomes blurrier) was also seen to be lacking in Bogost\u2019s argument.<\/p>\n Despite our several reservations about Bogost\u2019s article (not least a video game he made on behalf of the Republican party in Illinois), we still nonetheless felt his analysis could be used astutely for thinking about the inter-relation between video games and other media, as well as concepts of play more generally.<\/p>\n The questions Bogost raises about the nefarious elements of gaming \u2013 from micropayments on iPhone games, to the similarities between gaming and gambling companies \u2013 have become even more prescient since his article was published in 2008. The ethical components of play, how we define our identities by it, and where it begins and end, are increasingly complex concepts, providing stimulating and challenging ideas for us to bring forward into our research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the first Contemporary Theory Reading Group of the academic year we discussed \u2018The Rhetoric of Video Games\u2019 (2008) by Ian Bogost. Bogost begins his article \u2018The Rhetoric of Video Games\u2019 by examining Animal Crossing, a quaint, village-based game, where Tom Nook an \u2018unassuming raccoon continues to offer renovations\u2019 on a player\u2019s house as they … Continue reading “Contemporary Theory Reading Group – Video Games (08\/10\/2019)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":417,"featured_media":261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,5,6,3],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-animal-crossing","tag-contemporary-theory","tag-critical-theory","tag-ian-bogost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cclc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}