Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Preview Bogost's New Book, Persuasive Games

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Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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Preview Bogost's New Book, Persuasive Games

by Ian Bogost December 11, 2006

categories: Advergames , Educational Games , Political Games

My new book, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, which will be published in spring 2007, now has an official page up at the MIT Press site. This is the major research project I've been working on for the last couple years, and I'm really excited about getting it out there. The main argument in the book is that videogames exemplify a new form of rhetoric, which I call procedural rhetoric. Then I look at a multitude of examples, from early arcade games to very contemporary games. The book is very readable and should appeal to researchers, developers, and professionals alike.

There are a couple ways to preview the new material. First Monday has just published an article of mine about videogames and politics, Playing Politics: Videogames for Politics, Activism, and Advocacy. A different version of this article appears in one of the chapters on politics in Persuasive Games. In addition, I'll be giving a lecture at the Serious Games Summit GDC, Persuasive Games: Introduction to Procedural Rhetoric, which (surprise) will summarize the book's main argument.

Comments (1)

I read the abstract and excerpts of the book and I really liked the approach and the basic claim behind it. The concept procedural rhetoric seems to be quite instrumental as a category to explain the use of the means of video games and the way they function to suggest/interprete real and/or "possible worlds". The only thing that I felt fell somehow short was the use of the word "persuasive". It reminded me too much of its use in "mainstream" media and communication studies, especially in the context of advertising and political campaigns.

I also liked the book because it somehow reminded me of a basic question: "What is the raw material of video games?"

altug isigan on March 17, 2007 1:51 PM