Fatworld & Procedural Rhetoric

For the blog post this week, I decided to play a video game, and analyse its procedural rhetoric. I based my research on a game called Fatworld, created by Ian Bogost. Fatworld is a videogame in which its procedural rhetoric demonstrates how complex relationships between nutrition and socioeconomic factors are, and how these relationships can influence levels of obesity. It is a game about the politics of nutrition, with no intent in teaching players how to pursue a healthy diet, or how to exercise, but to potentially shape attitudes, leading to long-term changes in social behaviour. Bogost’s book, Persuasive Games: the Expressive Power of Videogames, is an analysis of how videogames carry arguments, and influence players. He suggests that in film, for example, visual rhetoric is the art of representing images persuasively, and in videogames, persuasive representation is studied through ‘ruled-base representations and interaction’ - procedural rhetoric. In this sense, the procedural rhetoric of a game is analysed through its rules. In order to analyse the procedural rhetoric of any game, Bogost argues that firstly, we must understand the rules of the system, and the significance of these rules. Secondly, it is important to know what claims these rules make about the world, and finally, how the player responds to them. In the game Fatworld, http://www.fatworld.org/, the objective of the game is to live until 100 years, or/and spend the budget as quickly as possible, opting to be fit, or fat, to live, or die. The player creates a world, and designs a character – male/female, age group, social class (poor to wealthy), and girth (underweight to extremely obese) - with the choice to also include predispositions towards diabetes, heart disease, and food allergies. I chose my character to be a 39 year old poor overweight woman, with a starting budget of $1000, and a predisposition to have a heart disease. The player needs to complete a list of tasks, which are mainly walking around the town, exercising, starting a meal plan, and buying a house. Time in Fatworld will run continuously, whether you play or not. By choosing the character’s diet and exercise habits, the player experiences the constraints of nutrition and economics, since the financial situation of the character affects directly its general health. My character was walking very slowly, so the first place I took her was to the Running Centre to burn some calories, and I burned 3830.00 calories in 87 seconds – gained 87 points. While exploring the game space, I found an affordable house, bought it, and started to plan my character’s meals. While planning the diet, I asked myself questions such as ‘Will it be wheatgrass and soy? Or fried chicken at every meal? How much can you afford to spend on food, and how does that affect your general health?’, and noticed that they are the result of the persuasive procedures of the system, that considering the number of options provided, still leads the player in adopting a healthier life style. Precisely, the game applies consequences to characters that eat poorly, by making them fat, and the lack of exercise will make them move around the world more laboriously – just like my character, originally obese. In addition, disease and death will eventually ravage players with poor health, while those with good health will live to 100 years. Once my character’s health increased, along with my financial situation, my character became more influential in public policy, and I was capable of changing the dynamics of the market by encouraging people to purchase healthy products, as well as discouraging unhealthy ones. The procedures of the system lead me, the player, to consequently opt for healthier habits of not only nutrition, but also better strategies to budget my character’s money, and set her day to day life priorities right. By providing a successful sample of how to structure a healthy nutritional plan, in consideration to socioeconomic aspects, this videogame could potentially disrupt unhealthy attitudes and behaviours through the procedures of its system, leading to significant long-term social changes.