1) Procedural rhetoric uses in-game processes to persuade players, but different players can come to different understandings of the same in-game logic. 2) The games Train and Playing History 2 used procedural rhetoric to address controversial topics like the JFK assassination and slave trade, but were received very differently by audiences. 3) This difference can be explained by three factors: the genres framed the content differently and set different expectations; the games traveled through different media contexts outside their intended frames; and their visual framing in shared media shaped varying audience perceptions.

1. the mechanic is not
the (whole) message
Procedural Rhetoric Meets Framing
in Train and Playing History 2
Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets)
Digital Creativity Labs, University of York
DiGRA/FDG 2016, August 3, 2016
c b

2. <0>
introduction

4. “Procedural rhetoric is the practice of using processes
persuasively …. Each unit operation in a procedural
representation is a claim about how part of the system
it represents does, should, or could function.”
ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 28, 36

5. “Rules control the meaning of the game, and players, by
following rules, create the meaning that is already
predetermined by the designer(s). For the proceduralists, a
game means what the rules mean… Players are important, but
only as activators of the process that sets the meanings
contained in the game in motion.”
miguel sicart, against procedurality, 2011

6. “Videogames represent in the gap between procedural representation and
individual subjectivity. The disparity between the simulation and the player’s
understanding of the source system it models creates a crisis in the player. I
named this crisis simulation fever, a madness through which an interrogation of
the rules that drive both systems begins. Procedural rhetoric also produces
simulation fever. It motivates a player to address the logic of a situation in
general ... Players are persuaded when they enter a crisis in relation to this logic.”
ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 332-333

7. “Rather than producing assent, ... the game [Howard Dean
for Iowa] produces deliberation, which implies neither
immediate assent nor dissent. Like literature, poetry, and
art, videogames cannot necessarily know their effects on
individual players.”
ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 329, 339

8. jfk reloaded, traffic games, 2004

9. “Although the designers encourage player’s to re-create the assassination as
realistically as possible, no player was able to re-create the event successfully
within the constraints of reported history. Given that JFK Reloaded had an
explicit persuasive goal – to affirm the Warren Commission report and
disprove conspiracy theories – it would appear to be a retorical failure. But
emergent features in the game’s design facilitate other interpretations,
suggesting that the developer’s stated goal was a ruse meant to inspire new
perspectives on the historical event itself.”
ian bogost, persuasive games, 2007, 133-134

10. How and why do different players
come to different understandings
of the same procedural rhetoric?
research question

11. Blindly focusing on outcomes and
following rules (as in gameplay)
leads you to dehumanise the
people affected by your actions.
the (meta-)mechanical message

12. game no. 1: train, brenda brathwaite, 2009

13. game no. 1: train, brenda brathwaite, 2009

14. audience responses

15. media responses

16. game no. 2: playing history 2: slave trade, serious games interactive, 2013

17. game no. 2: playing history 2: slave trade, serious games interactive, 2013

18. game no. 2: playing history 2: slave trade, serious games interactive, 2013

19. audience responses

20. audience responses

21. reader responses

22. WHY?
same rhetoric, opposite reaction

23. 1. Genre as contextual framing
2. Contextual travel of meta-media
3. Visual framing
three interconnected answers

24. <1>
contextual framing

25. genres as normative and epistemic frames

26. What is accepted and expected in …
genres as normative and epistemic frames
educational games
for children
artworks
for adults

27. train: expressive medium/art for adults
• Single physical copy
• Presented at art
galleries, universities
• Always accompanied by
author guiding follow-up
debate

28. ph2: edugame for 8-14 year olds in school
• Digital copies
• Distributed through
Danish schools
• Accompanied by
educational material for
teachers

29. critiques by audience

30. controversional topics: known and expected … in art

31. complicit subject position: challenging but not unknown … in art

32. <2>
contextual travel of
meta-media

33. released & announced on steam/twitter outside educational context

34. educational framing doesn’t appear here

35. in-game framing doesn’t appear in screenshot

36. how ph2 travelled through twitter & the media

37. games travel culturally as meta-media

38. <3>
visual framing

39. visual framing shapes understanding

40. visual framing shapes understanding

41. what everyone saw of ph2 in the media

42. how train travelled through the media

43. what everyobody saw of train in the media

44. carefully considered & managed visual framing

45. summary
1. Genres as contextual frames affect what content and form
are expected and appropriate. Thus, activated genre frames
shape how a game is interpreted.
2. Games regularly travel through culture and make meaning as
(easily decontextualised) meta-media.
3. Visual framing shapes how audiences perceive intended
authorial and reader stance toward a game.

46. sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
codingconduct.cc
thank you.