Comments on "Newsgaming"

Unfortunately for me, playing September 12 and Madrid did not shed much light on the questions described in my previous post. The "procedural rhetorics" of the two games are easily described:

> September 12 forces the first-person shooter to target terrorists mingling with residents of a Middle Eastern village. But missiles always arrive a moment too late, causing civilian casualties and collateral damage to homes and buildings, and thus stoking resentments that strengthen the terrorists.

> Madrid takes the player to an antiterrorist candlelight vigil. But though clicking each new candle causes it to glow more brightly, candles previously lit begin to dim. Thus the aggregate level of consciousness never really increases despite the player's best attempts (or seen another way, consciousness can only be maintained by the player's best attempts).

While at the Newsgaming website I checked out the link to Ludology blog and found an entry about McCain's new Pork Invaders videogame, clearly a takeoff on the Tax Invaders game described by Bogost.

The rhetoric of Pork Invaders is also simple to describe: Vetoes must be "shot" at invading pigs (an allegory for pork-barrel spending) before the pigs cause your house to crumble. Vetoes that shoot down pigs register points, measured in tax dollars saved, for the player. In the same way, Americans need a president, John McCain, who will veto wasteful spending.

Of course, as a class we played these games in order to explore their procedurality. But beyond that, they offered very little game value. Why would anyone other than cognoscenti who are already predisposed to the games' viewpoints actually play them? And if not, is their rhetorical power diminished?

And so once again, we return to a question I asked before: Have we set up a paradox where the most attractive games, the ones that let players control more action, have the least rhetorical possibilities for the designer? After all, you can't persuade people if you can't reach them . . . but how can you attract them without giving up substantial control to the gamers?