Bogost's Rhetoric and Animal Crossing

In his article entitled “The Rhetoric of Video Games”, Bogost reveals how one can truly analyze a video game to reveal the ideas and perspectives that the game is trying to illustrate. These ideas and perspectives are in reality reflecting upon the values and ideas of the game’s creator and quite possibly, our society and culture as a whole. I found it very interesting to see how the town in Animal Crossing is set up, very “cookie cutter”, if you will. It seems to portray a sort of ideal American small town where everyone knows one another. The game also alludes to our society’s view of big business owners and how they take advantage of the little guy, by using a character like Tom Nook who makes you work for him and uses your profits to expand his business. I found it particularly fascinating how interactive the game is and how every action made by the player has an effect. From my understanding, this is what Bogost means by ‘procedural rhetoric’, in how each action made by the player causes a particular effect on the game itself, within a certain possibility space created based upon the player’s interaction with the game.