Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
A broad understanding of rhetoric is well suited for analysis of video
games and forms the base of wordplay. In the wake of 'big rhetoric,' the
tools of rhetorical analysis of er a perspective for scholars interested in
studying how knowledge and situated truths are established in and sur-
rounding games. Rhetoric can address the entire discursive environment
of gaming as virtually everything can be described as rhetorical. This does
not mean that all insights granted by rhetorical analysis of games will result
in noteworthy contributions, but it does mean that the many dynamics of
video games can be commented upon by better understanding how par-
ticular symbols have the power to persuade, shape meanings, and aid in
the construction of our perspectives and beliefs. Rhetoric can look at both
the play in games and how the dynamics of design or culture more gener-
ally shape the ways in which a game is constructed and played. The words
contained in surrounding texts are particularly appropriate for rhetorical
analysis, from the blog posts that discuss a game to the impacts the brand-
ing of
Madden NFL Football
has on its public image. Finally, the primary
texts of a game, from the protagonist to the images, script, and coding, are
all dynamics that help shape a particular way of viewing a game that rhe-
torical analysis is well suited to critically analyze. Rhetorical analysis is at
the heart of wordplay, forming the base to see how words, design, and play
in video games matter, while pointing out how all those elements impact
our perceptions about video games as cultural objects.
GAME STUDIES
Looking to game studies for examples of theoretical and critical analysis
of ers an opportunity to refi ne the application of the tools of rhetoric to
video games and illustrates why developing wordplay is necessary. There
are four key pieces to reviewing this research. First, an overview of meth-
odological approaches in game studies illustrates the lack of established
methods in the fi eld and elements of video games that are necessary to
consider in the development of wordplay. Second, a discussion of games
as process develops the background needed to address the special status of
games as objects comprised of both meaning and doing. Third, a handful
of studies that use elements of rhetoric to analyze games demonstrate where
the combination of fi elds currently stands and how much wordplay can add
to rhetoric and game studies. Finally, examples of projects that could be
enhanced by the addition of a rhetorical perspective, yet do not necessarily
claim it, show how wordplay can enrich existing studies of games.
As an emergent area of study, the analysis of games does not yet have
established methods upon which to rely in the criticism of texts. Further
complicating things is that game studies is like a collection of pieces rather
than a clear, stand-alone discipline. Because of this, research generally bor-
rows existing methodologies from other places, which are then applied to
