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.
The BBC News reported today on a research study that says "bored housewives" are fueling the growth of online games. The article draws from a new Screen Digest research report about online gaming markets to 2007. From the article:
This is a very dangerous kind of thing to say, and it suggests that even researchers who seek to expose the viability of online games don't take them seriously. As I have argued before here on WCG (1, 2, 3) the reasons women play casual games seem complex, deliberate, and worthy of both serious study and respect. Joking about "bored housewives" is a pretty dismissive and derogatory way of treating both the players and the market. What a foolish thing to do.
The research report also suggests that skill-based gaming for cash and prizes (e.g. Worldwinner) represent a significant growth trend. Says report author Gibson, "They are not only playing games but are willing to pay to play games." I take issue with Gibson's implication that paying to enter a skill contest is the same as paying for a downloadable videogame from a site like PopCap Games.
Given these problems with the study at a summary level, I'm not sure if it can be taken seriously or not. That said, I haven't seen the full report yet. You can order it from Screen Digest for the kind of irrational sum one expects of research reports.
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