Game Work: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture

3 Capturing Imaginations: Rhetoric in the Art of Computer Game Development

“Are you sure?” David asked without looking up from his blue Game Boy Advance. “Yes, I’m sure. I read about it on the Web last week. Besides, I saw it with my own eyes when I evolved it on the weekend.” Maria and David were standing stock-still in the school hallway. “I thought the Spearow would stay normal. What does it look like evolved?” “It turns into a Fearow and it’s huge. Not bigger than the trainer, but still. . . . ” For the ¤rst time since class had let out, Maria and David glanced up from their games. Maria held her hand up to her shoulder. “It comes up to at least here.” “Geez. Any Spearow?” Their eyes were back to the tiny LCD screens that showed them a seemingly endless world full of creatures to be discovered, trained, evolved, fought, and traded. “Yep. If you can keep it alive long enough, which I doubt you can.” “Shut up. At least I got a Poliwrath.” “Only because you stole your sister’s water stone.” From a nearby doorway, a woman shouted, “Let’s go, Maria!” “I gotta go. My mom’s waiting for me. Hey, did you hear about the Pokerus ?” Maria clicked through the Game Boy’s menus, saved her game position , and switched it off. “It’s a new virus going around.” David turned his Game Boy off too, since Maria was leaving. “No, what’s it do?” “It doubles a Pokemon’s stat experience after a battle. I can’t tell if I got it though. I did some trades off the Internet, so maybe I do.” “Awesome! Will you infect me if you ¤nd out you have it?” 3 Capturing Imaginations Rhetoric in the Art of Computer Game Development “Why should I?” “Maria! I said let’s go!” Maria’s mom was walking toward her rapidly. “Because we’re friends.” “Not that good of friends,” Maria smiled. “See ya.” “Fine. See if I help you with Ms. Moeller’s fractions homework!” “Oh, all right,” Maria called over her shoulder. “You can have it if I get it.”  If we were to go by the mass media’s representation of video games—which often report that they are instruments of addiction and sociopathic behavior —we could only conclude that game developers must be among the most morally bankrupt craftspeople in history. Even before computer gaming was made one of several scapegoats in the Littleton school shootings, it had been on the receiving end of a steady barrage of criticism from a broad spectrum of society: fundamentalist and conservative Christians who had previously lobbied against games like Dungeons & Dragons and rock bands like the Eagles and Pink Floyd (not to mention, of course, the entire rap, metal, and punk rock scenes); concerned parents’ groups that had lobbied for a movie rating system years earlier; and progressive media critics who thought poorly of most mass culture multimedia, especially ¤lm and television. One of the earliest critiques of computer games—published in 1969—is entirely speculative and accidental. Perry London, in his book Behavior Control , writes about Joseph Weizenbaum’s computer psychotherapist software program named ELIZA. This program, which mimicked a therapist’s technique of mirroring patients’ remarks back to them, is discussed by London as an emerging and dangerous technology: “If it were possible for a machine to act in loco therapeutis by making those responses, a great economy of human resources would result” (98). As a result of this economy, argues London , people could become too dependent on machines and lose the ability to connect with human beings, an idea that has now fueled more than a dozen psychological studies into the impact of computer games. And unlike many later commentators, London does not optimistically conclude that this sort of neurosis is unlikely to develop: “Other factors . . . might also make it hard for some people to really ‘warm up’ to a computer, even a smart and loving one. Sooner or later, however, they probably will” (99). London’s critique is speculative because of his rather grim resignation that “sooner or later” everyone will succumb to what he sees as the inhuman charms that computers of the future will wield. His critique is “accidental” because London, like many others who retold the story of the “arti¤cial in72 rhetoric in the art of computer game development telligence psychotherapist” built by Weizenbaum at MIT, did not know...