Mini-Essay Eight

Throughout my reading of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, there were a number of times when I questioned the topics that Bogost discussed. There were points where I felt he was talking about videogames, but to be honest, there were other points where I felt like he was writing just for the sake of making his book longer. Despite this fact, I think that his last chapter explains the reasoning behind his writing style. It seems to me that Bogost has attempted to frame the idea of procedurality within the context of the videogame, rather than discussing the idea of procedural videogames. (This is similar, I suppose, to the way Gee discussed pedagogy through the lens of videogames.) On that note, a quote from the last page of Bogost’s book seems to sum up the motivation for his writing style. He writes that “[a]s players of videogames and other computational artifacts, we should recognize procedural rhetoric as a new way to interrogate our world, to comment on it, to disrupt and challenge it” (340). This, I think, is the context in which we should read Bogost’s book—not as a book about videogames, but a book about procedurality that can be understood a bit better through videogames.

The final section of Bogost’s book discusses learning, though I feel that these categories in which he attempted to fit his chapters are a little limiting because so much of the section seems to have little to do with learning. Anyhow, Bogost first discusses Procedural Literacy. He beings by asking “[a]re videogames educational?” (233). He then finds it necessary to explain different kinds of education, focusing primarily on behaviorism and constructivism. He defines the behaviorist view of learning by stating that “learning is about reinforcement” (233). He notes that behaviorism is often objected to because it ignores thoughts and feelings—behaviorism is all about conditioning. Constructivism, on the other hand, acknowledges the learning that is inherent in experiences. Bogost then describes the traditional classroom: one that Gee worked to correct through his game-related pedagogy. Bogost attempts to apply these two learning styles onto videogames. Behaviorist videogames “simulate the actual dynamics of the material world” (236). Opposition to videogames arise from this type of belief because one must question whether videogames are teaching positive or negative behaviors—many would, considering today’s videogames, assume that those outcomes are negative. Bogost notes, however, that there is a simulation gap or “the breach between the game’s procedural representation of a topic and the player’s interpretation of it” (238-239). Bogost then goes on to discuss Gee’s What Videogames Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy in which he describes Gee’s understanding of embodied learning. Bogost says that “I do not want to suggest that Gee’s position is invalid, but rather that it is not strong enough. Videogames do not just offer situated meaning and embodied experiences of real and imagined worlds and relationships; they offer meaning and experiences of particular worlds and particular relationships” (241). I, in this case, have to disagree with Bogost. I feel that Gee’s argument for embodied experience makes much more sense. (I also disagree that rhetorical positions are particular positions and that one does not argue to express in the abstract—isn’t that exactly what Socrates did?) Bogost doesn’t agree that videogames teach abstract knowledge, but rather the processes of particular activities. I believe that played in the correct way, videogames most certainly can and do teach abstract thinking. Otherwise, it seems that educational games would be skill-and-drill just like traditional learning, and we don’t need any more of that.

Gee next discusses values and aspirations and how these can be learned and taught through videogames. Here he discusses the difference between being schooled and being educated. He notes that the way school occurs today teaches consumption rather than allowing for knowledge acquisition. Then, of course, he goes on to point out that videogames such as the Sims teach consumption as well. Perhaps the Sims could teach consumption if the player weren’t putting any thought into the game at all, but I think that is a very bleak outlook. Also, if videogames were used in educational settings, even games that taught something as “negative” as consumption could be used for learning as long as there was a facilitator there (the teacher) to ask questions that would help the students form their own opinions about such topics. Bogost writes that he “understand[s] educational games not as videogames that end up being used in schools or workplaces, but as games that use procedural rhetorics to spur consideration about the aspects of the world they represent” (264). If that’s the case (that games spur this consideration) then I think they most certainly do have a place in the classroom.

Bogost’s last section discusses exercise, which I find very unusual in a section about learning. Unfortunately, I don’t actually have the space to discuss this topic; however, I feel that the inclusion of such a topic in the learning section leads to an interesting rhetoric in itself.

Questions:

1. How does exercise and exergames fit into the section about learning?

2. I felt that these last few chapters included a lot of biases. In what ways could/do biases influence our views of videogames?

3. Who’s view of education do you most agree with: Gee or Bogost? How can the two be combined to further our understanding of education?