Abstract
In How to Do Things with Videogames, Ian Bogost seeks primarily to expand the scope of gaming, as both a practice and a concept. The title may be a bit misleading since the book is not exclusively concerned with praxis—although there are many examples of how games are (or might soon be) used to effect change. Rather, Bogost focuses on moving videogame studies past the reductive binary that views games as either ‘commercial’ (entertainment, fantasy, or escape) or ‘serious’ (education, training, or political activism), arguing that we should ‘imagine the videogame as a medium with valid uses across the spectrum, from art to tools and everything in between’ (p. 7). Bogost calls on game scholars to practice ‘media microecology,’ or the study of media’s ‘overall ecosystem’ through an analysis of ‘the distinctive functions of its components,’ with the ultimate aim to ‘reveal the impact of a medium’s properties on society’ (pp. 6–7). Microecology, as an analogy, contains two major implications for Bogost’s methodology. Firstly, he seeks to expand the geography of gaming’s total ecological system by looking to examples beyond those typically studied. This goal is taken so far that, in the book’s conclusion, Bogost predicts that the very term, ‘gamer,’ will fade away as games become an increasingly mainstream, ‘habitual,’ and ‘domesticated’ aspect of everyday life (pp. 150–154). Expanding the definition of games entails a ‘demystification,’ a removal of the specialness required for ‘gamer’ to remain a meaningful identity (p. 150). Secondly, he wants to dig deeper in his analysis of games, ‘overturning rocks and logs to find and explain the tiny treasures that would otherwise go unseen’ (p. 148). This is the ‘micro’ in ‘microecology,’ and it expresses the books’ penchant for short, focused, but largely non-contiguous examinations of different aspects of gaming (e.g., the chapter on pranks follows the chapter on music, without transition). The book seeks to elaborate a broad gaming ecosystem through the articulation of a series of particular (micro) examples.
In service of this dual goal, How to Do Things with Videogames crisscrosses a dizzying array of disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Rather than constructing some broad narrative that strains to synthesize disparate questions such as ‘are videogames art?’ and ‘what’s it like actually to enact torture?’ the book adopts an essayistic form, comprised by 20 short, autonomous chapters (each ranging from six to nine pages) that detail different aspects of (mostly) non-commercial games. Each chapter begins with a unique context (framing broader debates, offering historical perspective, and referencing specific cultural objects), and concludes with Bogost’s own intervention. For example, the ‘Transit’ chapter begins with a discussion of the railroad and its effect on perception, drawing on Wolfgang Schivelbusch and Walter Benjamin to help explain how travel had lost its ‘aura’ with the proliferation of mechanized mass-transportation. Bogost concludes that ‘games restore the experience of resistance and adventure that the rail (and the airplane after it) had removed from travel’ (pp. 47–48). This insight simultaneously evokes themes of transit that span a variety of game genres (from Crazy Taxi to Animal Crossing) and identifies the practice of playing games on mobile devices while travelling as a modern means of re-enchanting transit. Bogost’s intervention at the end of each chapter is often a provocative question or an interesting juxtaposition of ideas, but is sometimes expressed through mention of a game or publication Bogost himself has produced, which will remind readers that he has been actively engaging these questions throughout his career. Bogost’s presence in the book highlights his unique qualifications—as artist, scholar, gamer, and, perhaps, visionary—for making these broad and diverse inquiries into the increasingly complicated world of gaming.
Given the variety of topics covered in How to Do Things with Videogames, Bogost’s analysis rarely dwells on the products of the gaming industry. If industry games are discussed at all, then it is usually as a foil for discussing alternative conventions. This fact is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength insofar as it allows Bogost to explore new functions for games, sometimes imagining new categories altogether. But it is a weakness insofar as one would like to see Bogost’s insights applied in a more sustained manner to commercial games and gamers. Bogost’s erasure of the term ‘gamer’ is part of his broader prediction that the territory of games is expanding, and that what is most interesting is the locus of this expansion. But commercial games have been central (historically and economically) to the progression of videogame technology and practice, and the study of commercial games can perhaps best bear the very fruit Bogost pursues in his exploration of the ‘impact of a medium’s properties on society,’ given commercial gaming’s position in broader patterns of consumption, pleasure and identity. Videogame studies would benefit greatly if Bogost’s micro-ecological lens were to touch down more frequently upon commercial terrain.
While the book largely passes on a sustained analysis of commercial games, it would serve as an excellent companion to studies more inclined toward the products of industry. In its format, How to Do Things with Videogames is reminiscent of aphoristic, short-chapter videogame books such as McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory (2007) or Ralph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2005). Since each chapter begins with fresh efforts of contextualization, the book is accessible to non-experts. But games scholars too will find the book interesting for its development of arguments Bogost (who has become one of the foremost videogame scholars) has begun elsewhere, such as in Unit Operations (2006) and Persuasive Games (2007), about the capacity for games to make claims about the world by modeling behaviors in interactive systems. The book is clearly in dialog with recent publications on videogames that highlight their capacity to develop new forms and functions, such as Jesper Juul’s A Casual Revolution (2010), Mary Flanagan’s Critical Play (2009), Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken (2011), and Bogost, Simon Ferrari, and Bobby Schweizer’s Newsgames (2010). This book will be mandatory reading for anybody working on ‘serious games.’ Perhaps the book will be most useful for scholars who teach undergraduate videogame studies—the brevity and range of its chapters allow for its incorporation in just about any syllabus on games.