Water Cooler Games
Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.
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An MMORPG for Learning Chinese Characters
by Ian Bogost December 22, 2008
categories: Educational Games

hanjamaru.jpgFrom South Korean company Eduflo comes Hanjamaru, an MMORPG designed to teach elementary school children Chinese characters. Characters are depicted on the monsters in the game, and the pronunciation and meaning is said aloud to the player as he attacks. There are rewards for collecting different characters, which are chosen to match a popular standardized test for school children in Korea.

The website is in Korean, but the company also maintains a blog in English.