Developing a New Major

I really liked this chapter from The Players’ Realm by Williams and Smith - the author looks at a variety of “rhetorics” around videogames - different ways of talking aboujt and thinking about videogames that usually seem to exist just one at a time in people (they’re either all narratology or all ludology for instance) - he gives examples of how each rhetoric talks about vdeogames and then talks about how they get along iwth each other (or not)

rhetorics :

product focused - technology (games get better as they take advantage of new technology, bleeding edge is better, more realism, better graphics, “technological euphoria” (p. 111), more and faster action, and if you don’t believe that you’re a luddite), economic (better games have better sales - sell more and you’re by definition a better game, game sales is the focus, profit for the game companies is the focus, so in game advertising is ok) - these 2 rhetorics work good together - better use of tech leads to better games and more sales

social - anxiety(videogames gonna have bad effects and should be banned, videogames too violent, turn players into antisocial criminals, most of these studies don’t measure real aggression tho  but rather simulated or pretend aggression), learning (time spent playing videogames is worth it if  players learn something or gain some new social skill especially with games on the internet, kids who grow up with games learn better from games, just gotta find the perfect learning game), gender (girls should play games so they’re able to get same kind of jobs as boys, to become part of the info society, no discussion of boy games in society just  games and girl games, no discussion of how stereotyped guy characters are or their effect on boys only of how stereotyped girl characters are and how that affects girls, talks about a pink games movement, the game grrlz movement as a reaction), ideology (games can be used to propagandize (bad things if it’s an idea critic doesn’t like and for good if it’s an idea the critic does like, kind of related to learning) - these 4 don’t work together - leraning and anxiety are usually seen as opposites while gender kind of already includes learning and anxiety

aesthetic - narratology (expectation that mature media will be narrative driven, and games will be interactive narrative, they say all games are narrative based even games like tetris with no words, and they won’t be considered art until they are narrative focused), ludology (response to narratology, ludology says focus on gameplay and game mechanics, can be great games without story, games have game structure and not narrative structure or maybe a narrative structure subordinate to gamplay - this is the one that appeals to me) - these 2 are opposites and don’t work together

- seems like the aesthetic ones and the product oriented ones could co-exist along with one of the social ones

- there’s a good chart on p. 122 with the main questions and common conclusions for each rhetoric type

- chapter has a big bibliography - usuful for some research starting points once ya find a rhetoric you like

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Game mechanic, Rhetoric, Technology, Video game