Bogost's inception of Procedural Rhetoric opens a whole new view of videogames, and what's going on beneath the surface. I've actually played Animal Crossing (his prime example) in a situation where two housemates were also playing it, and the consumerism at the core of the game became a competitive focus for us - and when one got tired of the consumerism, there was very little to motivate one to play the game. There is a question, though, of why some game developer wants to promote rampant consumerism.
Procedural Rhetoric, though, doesn't seem to me like something that's really limited to the video game. The concept seems almost Foucaldian, creating indoctrination through repetitive reenactment. Furthermore, there are real situations that seem to fit perfectly as examples of Procedural Rhetoric. Primary education springs to mind - while there is certainly plenty of knowledge taught, all the basic procedures that make a person into a normal, productive member of society are also taught there. It also could be applied to the Stanford Prison Experiment, and a number of similar studies that reveal that humans can be easily trained to act in certain ways, just by being in certain situations.
The video game is probably the *easiest* way to enact Procedural Rhetoric, but certainly not the only one. It does, perhaps, reveal it in a much clearer way than looking at other practices.
Mike, you will have to share some of your experiences with Animal Crossing in class (I admit, I grew up with Sony more than Nintendo)! It is a valid point that procedurality extends across many more realms than just gaming... Bogost acknowledges this in his longer treatment of the term "procedural rhetoric" in the book Persuasive Games. As computationally more robust objects, though, games are specially equipped to make these kinds of arguments (and as Galloway says, games "flaunt" informatic control, they don't try to hide it).
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