Making Games Matter: Games and Materiality Special Issue Introduction 

However, in arguing that games are a material form of philosophical (Bogost, 2012) and rhetorical carpentry (Rivers & Brown, 2013), we offer a collection of articles that purposefully use games and game analyses to decenter the sexist, racist, homophobic and otherwise dehumanizing aspects of traditional Western Enlightenment thought instead of using a falsely arhetorical materiality to reify them. Furthermore, we present an introduction that presents both the print special issue of Computers and Composition and Computers and Composition Online in hopes that readers will more readily explore both issues. In doing so, we hope to contribute to the long tradition of decentering the academic privileging of print texts within rhetoric and composition as a discipline (Walker, 1997; Gruber, 2000; Erickson & Blair, 2013; Eyman & Ball, 2016) because webtexts have the affordances to more fully embody and enact the principles they describe within written discourse through their multimodal materiality. By their genre function, webtexts can offer a rich multimodal context that more fully embodies and enacts ideas about materiality. In other words, the academic privileging of print journals for tenure and promotion (Weller, 2012) is a particularly unfortunate practice as webtexts afford further theoretical exploration through their embodied materiality. For instance, in this special issue, Cara Messina showcases the feminist material agency of code by designing a webtext in which the reader must hack the webtext’s code for the feminist message to be fully read, embodying feminist agency with code in the process. Emma Kostopolus invites the reader to explore the materiality of games and the theories that inform new materialism by playing a Twine game. Rich Shivener and Jessica Da Silva engage in a video post-mortem of their study examining game developer’s post-mortems and emotion during game development. Wendi Sierra, Ginda Sun, Tom Smith, Dawn Dark Mountain, and Brent Michaels David invite readers to learn about the Oneida culture and language by playing a game.

Computers and Composition Online

While many of the articles use the multimodal affordances of images, the webtext articles in Computers and Composition Online also use games to also performatively enact many of the systems of posthuman theory. For instance, Emma Kostopolus explores the materiality of games with various posthuman theories; she purposefully designed her webtext to introduce graduate students to the complexities of theories of materiality in an accessible way. However, multimodally her text is even more accessible because she designed this theoretical exploration as an interactive hypertext game in Twine. As such, readers can pursue the various systems of material thought as a game, conceptually exploring them in how they spatially and performatively interact with the text. Cara Messina explores both the inherent problems and empowering potential within feminist agency as she examines it as code in Doki Doki Literature Club. However, she also embodied this feminist critique with her game-like webtext, which, like the Doki Doki Literature Club game, embodies this feminist agency as an interplay between the gamer and the game’s protagonist, Monika, and also includes intentional glitches and a feminist webtext that must be hacked to be read to purposefully call attention to the materiality of code and feminist agency. 

Wendi Sierra, Ginda Sun, Tom Smith, Dawn Dark Mountain, and Brent Michaels David wrote an article documenting the design process of their game, A Strong Fire, which teaches players about the Oneida language and culture with its gameplay. The game is also playable in the webtext in Computers and Composition Online. This article and game also offer a strong response to Kristin Arola (2018) and Jennifer Clary-Lemon’s (2019) critique of posthuman theory for failing to cite indigenous authors or theories as indigenous writers and designers are not merely cited but included in  aspects of design and authorship. They offer the game as an example of “doing 'Indian,'” a material enactment of "a reciprocal relationship with one’s community.” 

Rich Shivener and Jessica Da Silva, Sergio Figueiredo, Jeffrey Greene, and Erin Bahl, and Adam Strantz discuss how the material embodiment of game design can enhance writing pedagogy. Strantz discusses the materiality of games by outlining a pedagogy in which he teaches his students accessible game design which is more inclusive of those who do not necessarily fit into the Cartesian subject position of the privileged, able-bodied white male: those who are economically disadvantaged and those with cognitive, emotional, and physical disabilities. He then asks his class to redesign popular boardgames so that they are more accessible to these non-normative groups and showcases the materiality of these game redesigns with pictures. Shivener and Da Silva conduct a study of game developer post-mortems to examine how emotion circulates within game design. In so doing, they also argue that writing studies pedagogy would benefit from adding the post-mortem, a reflection of what worked and what went wrong with game design, in teaching the writing and design process, especially as the post-mortem addresses the material and affectively embodied dimensions of the design process—and could also do the same for the writing process. Finally, Figueiredo, Greene, and Bahl use mannerist rhetoric to analyze how embodiment and the spatial can be rhetorically and pedagogically used within user-centered (UX) game design. They integrate pictures throughout to showcase the pedagogical and rhetorically mannerist aspects of their students’ game designs and gameplay.  

Computers and Composition

Many of the articles within the print issue of Computers and Composition situate their analysis of a game system within a larger social system, and argue for how games or the texts circulating around games online rhetorically influence this larger social system through their multimodal, materially embodied affordances. For instance, two articles, one written by Jason Tham and Jialei Jiang and the second article written by Tristin Hooker and Martha Sue Karnes, showcase how the materiality of games not only directly influences physical health through material embodiment but also influence the rhetoric about health that circulates around these games. Tham and Jiang examine how the materiality of the game Ring Fit Adventure influences fitness health through rhetorically analyzing gamer online commentary. Specifically, they look at how the materiality of the game influences gamers’ physical health through analyzing their perceptions of how to use the game, any flaws in the game’s design, and, most importantly, how cultural conceptions defining fitness health between US and Chinese players and conceptions of how to materially play the game influence gamers’ physical health. Karnes and Hooker examine the rhetorical materiality of EndeavorRx, a game designed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) through its play. By examining the written discourse circulating around this game, they also analyze how the game rhetorically transformed from a medical device to actual medicine. 

Two articles also explore how materiality rhetorically influences political discourse within the communities that surround a game. In so doing, they also examine how materiality influences rhetorical systems of oppression and resistance. Examining a Reddit dataset of 3500 posts, Elizabeth Chamberlain examines how the materiality of masks and online discursive conventions have rhetorically impacted #BoycottBlizzard, a political movement to protest Blizzard’s penalizing of players who have spoken out in support of Hong Kong’s efforts to retain a more autonomous, democratic government under Chinese rule. Emily Johnson and Anastasia Salter examine how the material design of the gaming social media platform, Discord, encourages the circulation of racist and sexist memes among various gaming communities. After discussing how this material social media design disrupts the ethical values of an inclusive classroom, they also explore strategies to address more ethical teaching with Discord as well. 

Elizabeth Caravella examines how the materiality of a role-playing game can influence the pedagogical system of a classroom through gamification. Specifically, using Holmes’ (2017) rhetorical analysis of proceduralized habits in games, Caravella argues that gamifying a class around a role-playing game (RPG) and turning the class into a physically gameful space can also cultivate similar habits in students, which are ultimately productive for learning. 

Finally, two articles explore how the materiality of gameplay exerts rhetorical agency. Amanda May examines how random chance acts upon the materiality of space and object design in The Sims. In doing so, she draws on Bennet’s vital materiality to show how the liveliness of matter within game objects and space interacts with random chance in design. She also shows how social systems online such as YouTubers and Sims-build fans co-circulate these material objects and, through discourse, both influence and are influenced by them. Steve Holmes and Rebekah Shultz Colby examine how the rules and mechanics in the board game Illuminati act as material attractors that create embodied dispositions for players. Specifically, because the rules allow cheating, they act as attractors for cheating, while also creating a possibility space for resistance.