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.
Update: For some reason I started getting a lot of hate mail recently from people wrongly assuming that I am the author of this game. I am not. I had nothing to do with it. So, please, keep sending me love mail, as usual. Thanks.
Update 2: The link at PCDevils now points to alternative links, along with a disclaimer saying that the game was developed by Zine14.com - circa 2002. I am not surprised that the game is that old. It makes sense that it became popular now given the fact that Mexican immigration is a particularly hot topic nowadays in the US. The game may have been "dormant" until players started interpreting under a new political light and assuming that it was developed as an answer to the current US immigration debate.
Border Patrol, a Flash game where players shoot Mexican illegal immigrants, has been around for a few days now. Almost every site that links to it accuses it of racist, which may not be my adjective of choice for a game where you have to shoot what the game calls "breeders" (pregnant Mexican women running along their small children).
CBS claims that nobody claims authorship for this game. I read that somewhere else, too and I am a bit puzzled since the game is nothing but anonymous. On the Game Over screen, you can clearly see a logo and a url: Zine14.com. That works as a signature for me, even though that website is currently down. The WhoIs database says that it has been registered in Venezuela(!)
Even though the programming is a bit simplistic, the game is surprisingly well done. I have been making a living creating webgames for years now and, trust me, whoever did this game knew what they were doing. They are plenty of tell-tale signs in amateur Flash games and this one has none except for the very simple gameplay. The graphic layout is very good, the illustrations are excellent, the animation is good, there are no typos, the sound is carefully done, the framing of the game (with the welcome to the US sign) is sophisticated.
My opinion? Somebody with very poor taste did this, that's about it. There are ad banners on the site, so they are making a few easy bucks by drawing on controversy. If you are feeling like being offended, try instead to be mad at somebody with real power and not at some poor fellows with a copy of Flash and too much free time on their hands. Still, they made it to CBS news, just like hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating for immigrant rights. The lesson: if you play your cards right -and have no scrupples- a little webgame can speak almost as loud as a million people. And of course, I am contributing to this by linking to the game. Oh, what a complex tiny little world we live in...
Play the game: Border Patrol (via gameology).
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