Rhetoric

Rhetoric can be expressed in many forms, including verbal, visual and writing. It can be described as “being a persuasive discourse, or an implicit narrative, wittingly or unwittingly adopted by members of a particular affiliation to persuade others of the veracity or worth-whileness of their beliefs.” Salen and Zimmerman (page. 517)

Each digital game expresses its rhetoric through visuals and instructions in the game. When playing Tomb Raider the visuals are third party so the image of the ‘attractive’ Lara Croft is on view. She must kill dangerous animals and creatures in her quest. The rhetoric within the game is quite violent, when playing you must kill to reach your goal. It does not condone violence, although there is limited violent action towards humans. The game, especially the sequel Tomb Raider 2 was marketed as being a violent game, yet still has the ‘sassy’ and ‘sexiness’ of the leading lady. Jenkins as cited in Salen and Zimmerman talks about how cultural rhetoric’s has an impact on game design. It is unlikely that the game would have been so popular if not the attractive female. Jenkins states “imaginary spaces to which boys find themselves in are not just neutral places of play: they are specifically gendered spaces that invite boys in and keep girls out”. If you look at the rhetoric of the clothes the character wears, it is combat clothes, and this again highlights the violent nature of the game. Although being a girl myself, I have played this game, I didn’t really enjoy the way it seemed aimed at men rather than women. The rhetoric of violence is normally one associated with male gamers; it seems likely that designers would aim at them. However there was great potential to market the game towards females as it has a female lead character but this did not happen.

Rhetoric is applied when marketing new games. It can be seen in many forms, from more subtle forms such as the clothes of characters within the game to obvious rhetoric such as ‘The best game you will ever play’. Marketing uses rhetoric as a good way to sell their products. Many games on the internet are used to market a product. For example the Pepsi website has games in which you can play, but the image and logo is covering the screen. For example one game ‘Pepsi Pinball’ has the word Pepsi splashed in the background and then a mini aim within the game is to knock all the cowboys over which then lets you into the Pepsi saloon. This is seen as a good way of introducing the rhetoric of their drink being exquisite, as opposed to be beaten over the head with messages such as ‘the best drink ever’ the message is implied within in the game.

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Bibliography
Salen. K and Zimmerman, E (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Pepsi Website, (no date). Pepsi Games. Retrieved on the 26th of February from the World Wide Web: http://www.pepsi.co.uk/games/