Ideological Frames and WoW

In examining the ideological framing of Vagrancy and Tax Invaders (not to mention the myriad examples of conservative taxation propaganda that consistently returns to the Space Invaders play style... are they seriously unaware of the past twenty-plus years of videogame development?), it is easy to see how political ideology can be expressed in a game environment to persuade people to take action. In GTA:SA an obvious connection may be made between eating fatty foods and getting fat, and the social ramifications that follow such a course of action. The ideologies these games warn against, as well as the ideological constructs they reinforce, are made self-evident by the presence or absence of procedures to address and control them. Bogost goes even further to explain how contextual decisions frame the ideological controlling procedures in these games, and draws specific attention to how context can emphasize or demean the ideologies.

In Bushgame, for example, the player controls all-American heroes in a quest against the "evil Republican Empire," embodied by Voltron. While this may seem comical, it is clear after playing for a few minutes that these design choices combine to produce a context where the ineffective economic approaches the Bush administration took in the first term may be seen as unbelievable. Something as absurd as a giant combining fighting robot representing the Bush administration's approach to support the Bush tax cuts (among other administrative decisions), not to mention the use of giant fighting robot versions of key cabinent members and political appointees (Giant Fighting Karl Rove is easily my favorite, though the FCC chairman piloting Janet Jackson's breast is a close second), does not seem that far fetched when augmented by instructional vignettes designed to provide information about the Bush administration's tax plan and the bodies that benefit. While the player characters, including Fat-Ass He-Man or Christopher Reeves, seem ill-matched to combat these enemies, the game's procedural message is clear: the entire situation is absurd, so we must do the best we can.

What does all of this have to do with World of Warcraft? This is what I will be investigating in my research paper for this class. In essence, my argument is that WoW uses procedural controls and ideological frames, among other procedural devices, to advocate cooperative play styles. Players are much more successful, in regards to quest progression, level progression, and trade progression, when they play with a varied group of player characters than they are playing strictly solo. The control interface, the character limitations, trade professions, and quest structure are all geared toward cooperative play, especially in higher level encounters.