Week 3

Rhetoric is the language which people use, wittingly or unwittingly, to convince others of their values or beliefs. In other words, rhetoric is, as Salen and Zimmerman(2004, p. 517) put it, “a method that attempts to persuade others that it is correct”. Thus, rhetoric is the expression of the speaker’s value and beliefs. And, rhetoric can take forms not only verbal but written. Then, importantly, rhetoric can be seen in video games and the games reflect lots kinds of values and beliefs of the producers. The rhetoric has big impact on society, as Williams (2003, p.252) says, “the various kinds of spaces in video games might be very important as parameter for social interaction and cultural expression”. Therefore, it is an important task to find what kinds of values and beliefs, rhetoric, games have.

Then, I would like to examine one of the games I have played and reveal rhetoric in it. The game treated here is Derby Stallion, the famous Japanese game, where player become an owner of a farm and grow up race horses. First, players begin with one million pound and get money with making strong horses. The objective of this game is to win every prize of horse race and obtain money and fame. Then, the emphasis is to make strong race horses. This game includes the task to produce and train race horses but training race horse do not have big importance because, though player can chose both train their horses by their selves and leave computer, both have little difference of the strength of their horses. Then, the value of this game is to make lots money is good and bring you high status. This is obvious from the objective. Another value is to use brain is important to get money. This can be seen if we look at the fact of this game that the way to make strong race horses is to have a foal from high priced stallion and have good mixture of blood between stallion and mare. The former is natural because of money players pay. Then, the latter is related to the value of using brain because players need to think deeply in order to have strong horses in this way. Thus, the rhetoric of this game is you can have more money and fame if you use money and brain efficiently.