Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
Video Games & American Culture » February 24th: Serious Games

February 24th: Serious Games

Don’t forget to do your Weekly Discussion Post by Friday, 2/25, 11:00 pm. Set a reminder for the rest of the semester.

Plan for the Day

  • Go over Ch. 8 “Serious Games and Gamification—When Entertainment Is Not Enough”
  • Consider Constructivism, Behaviorism, Cognitive Learning
  • Look at a couple Serious Games
  • Return to Cultural Studies
  • Maybe Zombies…
  • I hope to have your What is American Culture? Essays graded by tomorrow or Saturday

Ch. 8 “Serious Games and Gamification”

As I mentioned in the Canvas prompt, Ch. 8 is more about education than video games. We’ll review the types of games that fall under “serious games,” but we’ll also consider the broader cultural place of video games. This is also the worst edited chapter and full of inefficient prose. For instance, if you were in my Editing class (ENGL 4183/5183), you would immediately revise the following way:

  • Original: Many researchers and practitioners in the serious games and gamification area will refer to subareas like school, military, health, or corporate. These are areas where there is historically a strong tradition for both use of and research on the use of serious games and gamification. (p. 242)
  • Revision: Many researchers and practitioners in the serious games and gamification area will refer to subareas like school, military, health, or corporate. These areas historically have a strong tradition for both using and researching serious games and gamification.
    (subtle difference when you remove nominalizations; the original and revision both adhere to the known-new contract)

Edutainment

  • The Oregon Trail (1985) is one of the most memorable edutainment games. I remember (back in the 1980s…) many girls would talk about how much they loved this game. It’s interesting that I never played the game because I loved history and could easily have been tricked into learning by playing this game. Let’s check out the intro of The Oregon Trail. Yes, we’re going to do a cultural analysis. How does game play (rewards in this case) reflect AMERICAN culture?
  • Interestingly, as long as I’m musing about the past, the only other game I remember girls* playing back then was Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? (1985). The game is definitely associated with education, and I remember my elementary and middle schools using this game.
    • Am I reading too much into the fact that I associate The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? with girls? Why might more girls play educational games?
    • The conventional and empirical wisdom of the times, might shed some light on my mid-1990s assumptions:
      US Dept. of Education. “THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS OF WOMEN,” 1995.
    • For more contemporary research on worldwide findings of the educational gender gap, see “Girls lead boys in academic achievement globally,” 2015.
  • p. 252: “Many edutainment games are consciously devised to mimic “normal” video games in order to make them more appealing….[but] they lack intrinsic motivation.”
  • p. 254: “the attitude among educators, researchers, and game developers toward edutainment titles is often one of deep skepticism.”

*These students were well under 18. They were girls. I didn’t know any adults who played video games (except for Leisure Suit Larry [1987], which kind of has a Saved by the Bell look).

Political Games

One of the political games that comes to mind is Gonzalo Frasca’s September 12th (p. 245 in the textbook). You can’t win. Let’s see some game play. What does the game teach? Notice the introduction screen.

One of the textbook authors, Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, produced Global Conflicts: Palestine (Serious Games Interactive 2008), but let’s look at an earlier game first: Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator (Virgin Mastertronic 1990).

  • Now, let’s look at Global Conflicts: Palestine
    • What is missing from this conflict?
    • Consider the history of Israel and Palestine? This goes back to 1900, but I suspect we all know it goes back farther.
    • A history of Christian Zionism in the United States
  • Unpopular question: Is there ever going to a place for political games if the prevailing assumption is video games are an escape?
    • What assumptions drive arguments for (or against) the idea that political games can effect meaningful change?
  • Here are more Serious Games if you’re interested

Of course, the perspicacious student will recognize that all games are political (in the context of this class), and we should not ignore that. For instance, Ian Bogost, the often-cited video game scholar, discusses an educational game in his work (Bogost 29). I, of course, have a critique:

A clear example of ignoring the cultural context of video games comes in Bogost’s discussion of “Tactical Iraqi, a learning game designed to teach U.S. soldiers Arabic language” for their military deployments. The game’s creator, Elizabeth Losh, laments “find[ing] myself with an even more serious reservation about the game . . . realiz[ing] that the purpose of the game might be rhetorical not pedagogical.” Of course, there is no way to separate rhetoric from pedagogy. Losh appears to use rhetorical in a popular sense that means political speech used to win over audiences. Bogost continues with “Losh suggests, as an expressive artifact, the project might serve an agenda different from its primary one, namely drawing attention to a video game training system to distract critics from America’s military occupations of Iraq”; also, “its rhetoric is accomplished through media speech, not through process.” What he ignores is that, as a cultural product, created by the need to have translators in Iraq, this video game represents American empire and aggression. This technology serves a pedagogical purpose, but that purpose has nothing to do with media attention covering the game because it is an artifact reflecting American hegemonic goals of conquest under the guise of making Saddam Hussein responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the context of the invasion of Iraq and the George W. Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” the video game is a tool of empire.
…
Narrowly focusing on procedures may ignore what drove the need for a system. After all, technologies respond to social demands, often filtered through hegemonic interests.

Toscano, 2020, p. 28; internal quotes from Bogost, 2007, p. 48

Advertainment

I don’t think we need to play any of these games in class to do a cultural analysis. Why would these types of games be created? Notice that I’m not asking why would they be popular. The book made it clear that these aren’t the most popular types of games–possible exception America’s Army (Ubisoft, US Army, Sega 2002) (p. 261).

  • What mediates advertainment?
  • What economic factors make advertising in general necessary?
  • What are the “games” companies create to attract you to their brands?
  • p. 246: “advertainment…rel[ies] on sweepstakes wrapped in a very simple quiz-like or other basic game mechanic. In addition, e-Sports now allows an easier way to reach the same audience.”

Important Terms from the Chapter

  • behaviorism: learning happens solely through repetition and positive/negative stimuli
  • cognitive learning: (as a direct response to behaviorism) building on one’s prior knowledge to learn new concepts
  • constructivism: one learns not through passive means (e.g. rote memorization) but by actively constructing new knowledge based on your discoveries. Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development is an important aspect of this theory.
    • Full disclosure: I’m not an psychologist or educational theorist; however, in my anecdotal research, I’ve come to learn that, even though one may have a preferred learning approach, we learn, relearn, and reevaluate knowledge in a variety of ways.
  • Exogenous/external: motivation comes from outside the game (or activity)
    • Usually, passive players
  • Endogenous/internal: motivation comes from within the game (or activity)
    • Usually, active engagement
    • p. 252: Table 8.2 might be worth a look
  • ontology: (philosophy) study of the nature of being and why/how certain concepts are grouped into specific categories; search for the fundamental essence of a thing.
  • Consider in relation to epistemology: study of knowledge and ways of knowing; different disciplines privilege certain (often overlapping) ways of knowing.

Other Areas from the Chapter

  • p. 242: We spend lots of money and time on video games!
    • “Few other entertainment media have managed to encroach on other lives like this—maybe with the exception of social media.”
  • p. 243: Why aren’t games-for-change effective?
    • “…there exists limited direct research evidence that games can change the world despite the very influential work by Jane McGonigal. McGonigal, with her book Reality Is Broken [Why Games Make Us Better and Why They Can Change the World (2011)], has been very influential in arguing that one of our favorite pastimes can serve as backdrop for serious collaboration, thinking, and reflection.”
    • Although I question the influence she’s had, there is no doubt about her recognition as a major mind in video games.
      Check out this link for her book.
      Here’s a talk she gave at SXSW in 2011.
    • Why my skepticism…”Games can bring us leverage to solve real problems like in the alternate reality game (ARG) World Without Oil [2007], where players enter a community that most try to engineer, develop, and build solutions in a world with an oil shortage.” (p. 243)
    • Games for Cities
  • p. 244: “exer-gaming has received a lot of positive research attention, to combat obesity by using new interfaces that force players to move while playing.”
    • Dance Dance Revolution (Konami 1998) in West Virginia schools
  • p. 247: “Often contradictions in the research fields stem from the fact that researchers are examining different phenomena or have radically different starting points on humans and learning.”
  • p. 249: “Games cannot necessarily be said to be more effective than other teaching forms, although most studies have offered evidence of higher motivation, better retention over time and potentially better transfer. Students also tend to subjectively rate their learning outcome higher when they use games, and to prefer gaming to other teaching methods.”
  • p. 255: Repurposing COTS (commercial-off-the-shelves-games)
    • Civilization: Idk, did the Aztecs do this? (jump to 2:20 at some point)
    • Minecraft
    • Call of Duty series
  • p. 256: “Despite great interest among both teachers and students, computer games are not well designed for classroom use.”
  • p. 258: “All entertainment games rely heavily on building fantasies for players to explore, and educational serious games should be similar rather than abstract and distant.”
    • My contention is that, once you learn the rules of a game, you might not be able to draw a comparison to the real world. In Civilization, you quickly learn that domination is the way to win, but peace allows more attention for building your city improvements and keeping people happy. However, you need a strong military to immediately squash an aggressive country: beating them fast and furiously makes them quickly pursue a peace treaty based on the game’s algorithm.
    • Who thinks that’s a realistic form of diplomacy in the real world?
  • p. 260: “video games are tools for the players in constructing viable learning experiences. Games mediate discussion, reflection, and analysis. The video game experience is facilitated by the surrounding classroom culture and the student’s identity.”
  • p. 261: “Some researchers question the viability of packaging education as fun.”
  • p. 263: “drill-and-practice games are easy to develop compared to the design challenges facing other types of titles. Microworlds, for example, have proven significantly harder to design than classic drill-and-practice games. In microworlds, the player is confronted with a virtual world that contains a condensed version of the most important variables and characteristics of a given domain.”
    • “Klawe points out that the immersive effect of video games leads to a lack of awareness of the mathematical structures and concepts integrated in the video game.”
    • “when students wrote down math problems on paper while playing a math video game, they were more successful in transferring the video game skills to other classroom practice.”
    • FYI: why you should take notes by hand…

Gamification

This is the section related to the question I emailed you on Wednesday: Besides relationships, consider the board games, video games, gambling games, and, of course, sports that you hear about. I also mentioned, “Gaming and gambling are very similar activities; the gambling industry even uses these terms interchangeably. The main difference between the terms is that for gaming the outcome is achieved by skill, not chance, whereas for gambling, the opposite is true” (greo)

  • p. 269: “In gamification, you bring the game into the activity you are trying to enrich, rather than the other way around.”
  • p. 270: “loyalty programs are offered as an example of early gamification systems.”
    • Remember McDonald’s Monopoly game?
    • MyVegas App for rewards at M-Life Casinos.
    • Are loyalty programs games? Even Food lion has a loyalty program that offers discounts and coupons.
  • p. 272: Idealist vs Instrumentalist
    • “idealist approach…stresses that the gamified activity should not only get people to do things but also provide a deeper, more meaningful activity that wants people to do it.”
    • “The instrumentalist argument is, yes, we can create a deeper experience, but really, it’s not so important as long as we achieve the goals we set out to accomplish.”
    • Instrumentalism is focused on doing not critical awareness.
  • p. 274: “Rewards for effort trigger releases of feel-good chemicals in our brain, which train us toward a desired behavior.”
    • “Facebook is addictive partly because it allows us to receive real-time feedback on our actions.”
    • Time permitting, a Facebook post that went flat…
  • p. 276: “students in the gamified course tended to decrease in motivation, satisfaction, and empowerment relative to the non-gamified course.”
  • p. 277: “The study that finds negative results seems to deploy a very instrumentalist version of gamification, where some badges are flicked together and can be achieved by performing a task.”
    • “Hanus and Fox report that the intrinsic motivation decreases for the students in the gamification group, and that this negatively impacts their course outcome.”
  • p. 278: “it seems clear that the cookie-cutter approach, where you just implement gamification, is far away from the realities in the classroom.”
    • “There is also bigger question with regard to whether reliance on extrinsic motivation in one knowledge domain will spill over into other areas.”
  • Seduction of the masses: Do we need illusions to live? {that question is not in the textbook}
  • p. 279: “lot of gamification is simply implemented with an instrumental approach, which can be problematic.”

After 20 years of teaching, I want to point out that one can’t just take a technique, lesson, etc. from one context and assume it’ll “work the same way” in a different context. Rote memorization can easily be gamified, but what’s the bigger meaning behind that idea? Why is critical understanding not as likely with gaming?

Cultural Studies

Let’s get into Cultural Studies. I don’t have anything formal to present, so lets see if we can apply any theories to video games. It might be best to ask “what’s the goal of cultural studies?” We didn’t cover this on February 10th, but here’s a video we should watch:

  • This video explains “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” a chapter in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). I particularly like this quotation:
  • “…all find themselves enclosed from early on within a system of churches, clubs, professional associations, and other relationships which amount to the most sensitive instrument of social control” (p. 120)

What parallels can we recognize between the a closed cultural system and a gamespace?

Cold War Video Games

Well, these games might start getting renewed attention with Putin’s aggressions in Ukraine. Time permitting, let’s look at gameplay and consider what we learn and/or what we might need in order to play.

  • Balance of Power (Mindscape 1990) gameplay
    • Balance of Power (Mindscape 1985)
    • Jump to 11:30 for the “back channel” discussions
  • Nuclear War (US Gold 1989)
    • Better sound introduction
    • Faster gameplay
  • The Armageddon Man (Martech 1987)
    • Also called Global Commander
  • S.D.I. (Cinemaware 1986)
    • In the year 2017, the KGB gives the United States an ultimatum… (Jump to 1:30 then 3:10)
    • I’m confused about the video game’s box…

For more Cold War video games, check out Wikipedia’s category and this article “10 Unique Videogames from the Cold War.” There is also an argument to be made that our contemporary video games had a genesis in the Cold War space race of the late-1950s into the 1960s. (Of course, we all know Guglielmo Marconi invented online games.)

Next Class

Read Ch. 9 in Understanding Video Games for next week–last chapter in that book. Then, you have Spring Break and your Midterm Exam right afterwards.


Further Reading

Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT UP, 2007.

Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford UP, 2002. (originally published in 1947).

Stoet, Gijsbert and Geary, David C. “Sex Differences in Academic Achievement Are Not Related to Political, Economic, or Social Equality. Intelligence, vol. 48, 2015: 137-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.11.006

Toscano, Aaron. “Approaches to Video Games.” Video Games and American Culture: How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds. Lexington Books, 2020: 17-40.

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