Poke-Rhetoric

As I was reading the chapter in Gameworks on rhetoric (the one that starts with the conversation about Pokemon), I was struck by this quote:

Good game designers, like good advertising agents, are particularly skillful at knowing intuitively what will capture the audience's attention . . . [Game] developers adorn games with plot details that depend on rhetoric functioning conditionally. (90)

I think skilled game designers are also good at creating subcultures for their games complete with specialized language and rhetoric. This pulls the gamers in to create a higher investment in the actual game.

I went through that conversation and underlined every word that was either unique to the subject or reappropriated to mean a different thing. Here is a list of the words I found:

• Game Boy Advance
• Web
• evolved
• Spearow
• Fearow
• trainer
• LCD
• discovered
• trained
• fought
• traded
• Poliwrath
• water stone
• Pokerus
• Game Boy
• Pokemon's
• stat experience
• Internet

Some of those words are used in everyday conversation--Web, Internet, and LCD, for example--but in the rhetorical context of the conversation, they mean different things. The Internet refers to a system of connecting two Game Boy Advances together for the purpose of the game (I'm assuming, based on the context). Web retains its normal meaning in this context, as does LCD.

The words that are completely reappropriated--evolved, trainer, trained, fought, traded--create a new language or way of communication between the gamers without having to create entirely new words. The game designers deliberately crafted these meanings in order to create a culture around a specific game, and apparently to great success. In 2000, the Pokemon games were the top selling games of the year (74).

Finally, the new words--Poliwrath, Spearow, Fearow, water stone, Pokerus--are entirely unique to the game and further pull the gamer into the experience. The rhetoric of Pokemon is brilliant and extremely effective.

I realize the chapter on rhetoric is more about the rhetoric of game development, but I think this shows how the linguistic "art" of creating a game can make it more successful as a gaming experience (one that apparently crosses into everyday life outside the game) and a business venture.

So now there's the golden question: so what? I think, as tech writers, we need to deliberately create a rhetorical universe through the language we use if we ever work on games. Being away fo how language shapes a gaming experiences makes it more immersive and, if paired with excellent gameplay, will be profitable/successfull. Look at World of Warcraft. Azeroth, Night Elves, Loraereon, Horde--these words have a specific meaning in the context of the game but also create a rhetorical world for the players to exist in, a language with which to communicate with each other, and generally immerse the players into a more satisfying experience. I'm wondering how this applies to the chapter, though. Is this rhetoric functioning exigently, in a quotidian way, or conditionally? Or may none of the above?

Hypermediacy and Convergence as Prosthetics

I know it isn't exactly an example of modern film making at its finest, but there's this scene in Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is being questioned by the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Stark is asked whether or not he is in possession of the Iron Man weapon, and Stark responds that what he has is better defined as a high-tech prosthesis. A few moments later, he pulls out a smart phone that literally allows Stark to manipulate the real world through an example of ubiquitous computing.

The reason I bring this up is that I see the eventual convergence of technologies as well as hypermediacy as eventually functioning as a virtual/digital prosthetic--a seamless and essential extension of ourselves. I think the corporations. hegemomic overlords, etc. want this to be the eventual goal as well but maybe don't know it yet.

Maybe Apple knows it. When the iPhone was first released in 2007, I read an article (it might have actually been on Wired, but I don't remember exactly) that explained to iPhone users how and when it was appropriate to look up information when you were with friends in some social setting. The point of the article was to give geeks gentle advice on how not to be a know-it-all with their new gadget and constant internet access, but what I took from it was how constant internet access would eventually fundamentally change how we interacted with each other. Don't remember the name of that movie with the cowboy guy from Ghost Rider and The Big Lebowski? In a few seconds, you'll know his name is Sam Elliot, and you'll know the name of the movie, too. Apple wants you to see your iPhone not only as a tool or gadget but part of your identity. We're going to become so accustomed to having video communication, voice communication, libraries of data and information, picture galleries, etc. all available to us at all times, we're going to become dependent on it.

I don't think that's a good or bad thing; I just see it as the way it's going to be. It won't be universal, not for at least 20 or 30 years, but as baby-boomers like my parents age, retire and die, those of us who grew up with technology and are completely comfortable with it will see its place as an extension of our identities as natural. Privacy concerns won't really matter to us like it does to some groups today.

Internet browsers won't ever actually go away entirely, as the Wired article referenced in Bolter and Grusin posits (see 221-226), but they will first become more important as they replace the need for a desktop computer. I mentioned this in my introductory post, but I have 5 machines I use consistently right now: my desktop at home, my office computer, my tablet, my phone, and my netbook. I can access all of my necessary files on any of these computers due to the way I use apps primarily available in an internet browser. I bet Google, Dropbox, and the other services I use see me as the ideal customer because I've become somewhat dependent on what they're offering. As companies start to realize what it means to have everyone constantly using a different digital device, the smart ones will offer a way to make accessing the virtual self across platforms seamless and natural. The actual medium will become inconsequential.

When that happens, the corporations will love it. Advertising will be everywhere, and everything will be monetized. Instead of using your tablet one way and your PC another, your individual digital experience will seamlessly transfer across all technological platforms in an example of ubiquitous computing. Here's kind of an example of what I mean:



Of course, the reality in that video would be hell, at least from our perspective now. Maybe by the time that technology develops we're have become gradually accustomed to it--like boiling a frog.

What does this mean for tech writing? As readers/users/our audiences gradually shift towards the "prosthetic" model of technology use from the current "window" model (having a very obvious interface through which technology is accessed instead of a seamless platform), I think we'll have to assist in that transition somehow.

I don't know, though. Maybe it's because I've been awake drinking Mountain Dew all night, but watching that video again kind of makes me want to throw up.

Occupy Marx Street?

I wonder what Karl Marx would say about the #Occupy movement. On Saturday, I was in San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley, and there were signs for local Occupy protests in each of those places. I don't actually see Oakland as a financial center for the country, but the mere presence of a protest shows how widespread the rise up against what Marx might call bourgeoise oppressors has become.

Being interested in this sort of thing, I was very excited when I began reading Cyber-Marx and came across this lovely passage:

The unleashing of computerization, telecommujnications, and genetic engineering within a context of general commodification is bringing massive crises of technological unemployment, corporate monopolization of culture, privatiztion of bodies of knowledge vital for human well-being and survival, and, ultimately, market-driven transformations of humanity's very species-being. In response to these developments are emerging new forms of resistance and counterinitiative. And insofar asthe force with which these movements collide is capitalism--perhaps  a post-Fordist, postmodern, informational capitalism, but capitalism nonetheless, and not some postindustrial society that has transcended commodification--Marx's work can continue to provide participants in these struggles a vital source of insights.

Technological developments are allowing new forms of resistance and counterinitiative to emerge. I need to do some more research on this, but from what I saw, the whole Occupy Wall Street protest began as a activity by Anonymous, the hacker/mischief-maker collective. Their @AnonOps Twitter channel was the unofficial way much of the early information about these protests were disseminated and organized. Anonymous works well as an example of the proletariat using emerging technology to effectively activate against the modern aristocracy. There isn't any central leadership, allowing strong ideas to simply command attention and support organically. This does lead to a sort of "mob rule" at times, but for the most part, the organization has been very effective in executing attacks on the ruling classes.

I'm not sure what Marx would say about this exacty, but I think it's incredible the supposedly-discounted Marx and his theories actually have plenty of application in the new user-driven world of technology.

There are a lot more factors that go into this, I know--organizing on Facebook requires use of Facebook, one of these hegemonic institutions--but I think it's still an application of Marx's theories. I wrote this a few days before class just to make sure I got it done, and I'm eager to see what else Dyer-Witheford has to say about Marx in the modern technological world.