I recently had the pleasure to read an astounding book called “Persuasive Games” by Ian Bogost. In it, he develops the idea of “Procedural Rhetoric” which is the process of conveying a nuanced message through rule-based systems.
Essentially, rather than expressing ideas through the written word like in books or through visual storytelling like in movies, video games have the unique ability to talk about the world through its rules and the emergent properties of those rules.
One of the earliest examples of using this technique was Elizabeth Magie’s original implementation of “The Landlord’s Game“, a board game about the ill’s of unchecked capitalism. The rules of the game necessitated that the player directly engage with and understand the inherent unfairness of their actions.
When directly educated about complex subject matter like economic systems, it is taught in a manner that tends to affirm the structures of the existing world. When taught this way, it is extremely difficult to imagine how desirable (or undesirable) these massive systems are.
A game that attempts to create a simulation of these incredibly complex systems allows one to play with the idea and really explore its ramifications. As Bogost puts it, “Once a procedural rhetoric advances a new logic that a subject interrogates, it no longer remains possible to feign ignorance about that logic”.
Fresh from the Oven 