This month’s Wired Magazine (July 2007, or 15.07 in Wired volume parlance) devoted their regular games feature to some of my recent work at Persuasive Games. The main subject of the story is Fatworld, a game we’ve been working on since Fall 2006 or so. It’s a game about the politics of nutrition, about the relationships between obesity, nutrition, and socioeconomics in the contemporary U.S.
The article touches on a number of other games of ours, as well as giving a nice nod to my new book (which should hit the streets in a matter of days). One of the themes that comes up is that of fun, something I’ve written about in the past and often find myself talking about, or against:
The question of fun hangs like a cloud over this medium,” Bogost says, pointing out that “fun” would hardly be accepted as the highest possible praise for a song, novel, or movie.
While it’s short, it’s a great piece, and I felt that it really nailed the broader project of much of my work.