There are two entirely different worlds of rhetoric when it comes to StarCraft, as there are two entirely different sides of American culture who view this game and the people playing it: Gamers and Everyone Else. For the sake of this blog, we will just look at the Everyone Else category, and view the overall perception of video games. In American society, it is easy to say that little to no value is placed in playing video games. It’s funny, “playing” is viewed as a bad thing when it takes place in front of a television screen or computer monitor, but “playing” ball on a field will make you millions. The general population, when exposed to the text of a video game, has such a negative connotation ingrained in its minds over all these years as a result of games being largely absent from pop culture. Aside from Mario, Pac Man, and possibly Sonic the Hedgehog, how many household name video game icons are there? This is because this rhetoric exists in our society that too few are willing to challenge. There are no champions in the academic field that want to argue the validity of games, and we laugh it off when thinking of how games are so popular in the western hemisphere that there are actually World Gaming Championships, where players are garnering wages equal to that of professional athletes.
Now, even though StarCraft was incredibly successful, “selling over 10 million copies and winning the Game of the Year award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences,” Sarah Kerrigan, perhaps the game’s most iconic character, will never gain the notoriety of Mario anytime soon (Blizzard.com). (Although, NBC's The Office might prove me wrong a bit when resident oddball Dwight Schrute decided to dress up as her on halloween this year). When an American non-gamer views the PC game, what is the rhetoric are they seeing? What message is being conveyed to them? The first and most obvious aspect they will see is the violence. The game is a war game, and I can find no fault in Blizzard skipping out on having their character models explode into happy faces and confetti when dying in combat, and opting for the more realistic result: Blood. The game has a rating of “T” for Teen because of use of foul language, and violence. I am not going to put my hat in the debate of whether or not games influence children to commit violent acts, but I can certainly see the association. Brummet refers to the logic of video games as “beautiful violence,” and StarCraft definitely fits the bill there (Brummet 75). Its sharp character models, lush landscapes on certain maps, and breathtaking cinematic sequences are mixed in freely with some pretty gory deaths, especially on the part of the Zerg. The violence of a war game produces rhetoric—and a concerned parent could care less about StarCraft’s epic storyline or game mechanics if they see the game as mindless violence.
There are plenty of other forms of rhetoric that might emerge from other aspects of the game. For instance, the game is science-fiction oriented. Sci-Fi is associated with a certain group of people in our popular culture, people that are ridiculed but keep dressing up in costume every year for Comic Con anyway. Science Fiction gets an “uncool” connotation because of this association, whereas Sports games or Grand Theft Auto really don’t have nearly the level of negative association in terms of genre. Another rhetoric that emerges from the text is the time involved. StarCraft is easy to learn, but very difficult to master, as we can see from the South Korean professionals as they engage in hand stretching ritual early on in the match on the YouTube video. Joking aside, even though the game is not too difficult to learn, it does require time investment. People who play video games but do not consider themselves Gamers can very easily be dissuaded when they see a learning curve. I don’t believe this to be exclusive to StarCraft, or even to the RTS genre, because “casual gamers” are becoming more and more prevalent in pop culture. I only need to look at Angry Birds fever that has spread like wildfire through our country to prove that point. So what can drive nongamers to suddenly accept video games as a useful or inspiring part of their culture? We will look at our neighbors in the West next post to get a better idea of what it takes.
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