Zachariah James Watson
As Bogost begins his take on branding, he starts by pointing out the reality of how monopoly has had a long, complex, and unknown history with the structure and design of business practices. He then states how the established set of values of being a business tycoon were once different when they were first set in place. Around 1903, about thirty years before the established form of monopoly as we know it, a woman named Elizabeth Maggie Philips designed a board game called The Landlord’s Game to promote a philosophy known as Georgism. This form of economic philosophy suggests that land cannot be owned by any one person, but belongs to everyone equally. With this in mind, video-games can also be perceived in this manner as public property. However, there have been countless attempts by companies to brand certain names, titles, and ideas as their property in order to capitalize on them as a means of increasing their personal wealth and income (Hasbro, Activision, Capcom, EA, etc.).
http://bogost.com/writing/blog/how_to_do_things_with_videogam_2/
http://bogost.com/writing/blog/cowclickification/
Discussion Questions:
1) What is your personal take on how branding should work within the video-game industry?
2) Should there ever be any sort of monopoly within the video-game industry? Why or why not?
zmansite 