We talked a lot about metaphors in class today. The main one is the time = money. For example, one can spend and waste time just like money is spent and wasted. This is an attempt at defamiliarizing the concept. Another metaphor is anger = a bomb. I was talking to him and I blew up. However, Bogost suggests that anger = watering a plant. In other words, you're the one cultivating the anger, you are the one in control of it. If anger is a bomb, you can't do anything about it; if it's a plant that you nourish, there are all kinds of things you can do that are implications for acting.
Laying out models for how the world works lays out possibilities of action. This is done through using metaphors to help us better understand the world around us.
The discussion now turns to focus on Bogost's text and how he talks about how games set up frames for different things. We talked about Tax Invaders. It's based off the game Space Invaders, and its frame is that instead of a laser gun, you play with George W. Bush's head, shooting John Kerry's tax plans. It's a political message disguised as a game, and its frame is that you are able, as the player, to take an active stand against the democratic position. We decided that it was a way of dumbing down the boring, bland political message by putting it into the form of a video game.
Thinking about things like terrorism, drugs, poverty, and other things that politicians declare wars on shape the way the general public views these concepts as being enemies that are real and tangible. This is the same thing that Tax Invaders does. It depicts the frame in tangible form, in the rules of the game. It gets people to think about society, and it's up to the video game designers of the future to realize that and act upon that.
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