Water Cooler Games

by Ian Bogost March 21, 2009

Games for Change Festival: Registration and Schedule

General

The Games for Change annual festival has opened registration and announced the full program for the event. The event will be held in New York May 27-29. ...

by Ian Bogost December 30, 2008

Make a Serious Game, Win Cash

General

Whosegame, another make-your-own-game website tool things, is sponsoring a contest to create a serious game using their tools. The game must deal with one of the following topics: improve your knowledge in the telecommunications field be an eco-citizen with the help of telecommunications acting against isolation and exclusion thanks to ...

by Ian Bogost December 1, 2008

Today and Tomorrow: Living Game Worlds IV at Georgia Tech

General

Georgia Tech is hosting the fourth iteration of our Living Game Worlds conference today and tomorrow, December 1-2. This year's theme is "Interplay: Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds"; speakers include Raph Koster, Chris Klaus, Richard Bartle, Randy Farmer and more. The program is online, and you can watch via live ...

by Ian Bogost August 28, 2008

Serious Games Summit 2009 Call for Submissions

General

Ben Sawyer and I will be programming the Serious Games Summit at GDC 2009. The call for submissions is now open, through September 24. Submit your proposals online. ...

by Ian Bogost July 8, 2008

Imagine Cup Winners - Games for a Sustainable Environment

General, Public Policy Games

I've been in Paris for the last week judging the game development category of the Imagine Cup. I'll write a full account later, but I wanted to report that the winners were announced today. The games needed to appeal to the competition theme of "imagine how technology can enable a ...

by Ian Bogost July 2, 2008

Parents: Sex is Worse than Severed Heads

General, Social Games

USA Today is known for their daily infographics. Yesterday's covered "Video game offenders: What parents say they would find most offensive in a video game." You can see the results at right (click to make it bigger). It's nice that gay smooching just barely edged out "graphically severed human head" ...

by Ian Bogost June 3, 2008

Games for Change Festival 2008

General

For a variety of complex reasons I'll spare you, I'm not at the Games for Change Festival today and tomorrow in New York. For coverage, you might want to read the note-like liveblogging at Valuable Games, or Leigh Alexander's coverage at Kotaku. ...

by Ian Bogost May 23, 2008

Meaningful Play CFP

General

A call for papers for the Meaningful Play conference has been published by the conference organizers at Michigan State University. The conference takes place October 9-11; submissions, due July 1, will be peer-reviewed and selected papers will also appear in an issue of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated ...

by Ian Bogost March 21, 2008

Grand Theft Childhood preview

General

The forthcoming book Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do, by husband and wife Harvard researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson is sure to rustle some feathers. Into the tired world of media effects arguments, Kutner and Olson offer a more nuanced ...

by Ian Bogost March 19, 2008

My new column: Videogame Pranks

General

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one on videogames that act like pranks and practical jokes. You can read the article over at Gamasutra. A couple things I learned from people after the piece was published. First, the title of "Syobon Action" (also "Shobon Action") a game ...

by Ian Bogost March 16, 2008

GDC follow-up: text of my Education Summit keynote

General

Following up on the earlier mention of my GDC Education Summit Keynote, I've posted the text of that talk up on my personal site. ...

by Ian Bogost March 12, 2008

Indiecade Call for Submissions

General

Indiecade has announced the call for submissions for their show at Open Satellite festival in Seattle, which they are calling their "flagship festival." According to the call, "independent interactive media of all types" is eligible, including videogames, serious games, ARGs and more. Entrants will also be considered for year-round international ...

by Ian Bogost March 11, 2008

iPhone SDK - No Good for Games Yet

General

Weren't you all excited about last week's announcement of the iPhone SDK? Didn't you think it would finally shut up grouchy people like me who are always complaining about the lack of open platforms? Yeah, me too. Until I downloaded it and tried to build some sample OpenGL code. Turns ...

by Ian Bogost March 4, 2008

Nobody buys my book at TED

General

News from Keith Boesky, who is attending the famous TED conference in Monterrey. According to Boesky: When I picked up Ian Bogost's new book "Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Video Games" in the TED Bookstore, the counter person told me I was the first to buy it. Ironically, the ...

by Ian Bogost February 22, 2008

GDC 2008: Reinventing MMOs: A Metaplace Antemortem

General

The session was titled "postmortem" but, since it is impossible to postmortem a product that is still in alpha, Raph Koster retitled the session accordingly. The theme for GDC this year is democratization of user content, he said. That's why we're here even though we're done yet. ...

by Ian Bogost February 19, 2008

GDC 2008: My Education Summit Keynote

General

I'm going to cheat today and link to Game Career Guide's coverage of my keynote rather than blogging a session I attended. Where 'Love' Belongs: An Academic's Thoughts on Game Education ...

by Ian Bogost February 17, 2008

Game Developers Conference 2008

General

I'll be at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week. This year, I co-organized the Serious Games Summit with Ben Sawyer. It's smaller than previous years, but the schedule is densely packed with goodies. That runs Monday and Tuesday. I'll be giving a keynote Tuesday at the IGDA ...

by Ian Bogost February 14, 2008

Atari Valentines (reprise)

General

I was on a transatlantic flight today, so our Valentines greetings will have to be a reprise of last year's, this time in celebration of the completion of the book Nick and I just finished on the Atari VCS. ...

by Ian Bogost December 27, 2007

Persuasive Technology 2008 Submission Deadline Looms

General

PERSUASIVE 2008, the Third International Conference on Persuasive Technology, will be held June 4-6 2008 in Oulu Finland (a good time of year to find yourself that far north). The submission deadline for this conference is January 1, so you still have time to get your paper in if you ...

by Ian Bogost November 19, 2007

My Week at Kotaku

General

A week ago I took a short leave to go guest edit at Kotaku. I claimed that I'd update this site with links to my posts, but it proved impossible. All in all, I wrote 45 articles at Kotaku, some on topics of direct interest to WCG readers, others of ...

by Ian Bogost November 12, 2007

Bogost at Kotaku this week

General

I'm serving as a guest editor over at games uberblog Kotaku all week. I'll post links to my stuff over there every day or so sometime! next week maybe!, but in the meantime you can sift through the archives over there. My first posts should go up mid-morning Eastern time ...

by Ian Bogost October 20, 2007

Slamdance Game Festival shutters, festers

Game Design, General

Almost three years ago, Persuasive Games exhibited at the Slamdance Game Festival. We had a great time, and got a strong feeling of real "indieness" from the event and attendees. We were lucky enough to go back in 2006, showing Disaffected!. We had an equally great time, including getting to ...

by Ian Bogost October 5, 2007

Play Cultures Exhibition opens

General

Today our pals at Grand Text Auto open their exhibit at the Beall Center in Irvine. At the same time, the The Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina in Novi Sad, Serbia, is opening the exhibition Play Cultures. The exhibit features work by WCG's own Gonzalo Frasca and Persuasive Games, as ...

by Ian Bogost September 4, 2007

Book signing in Atlanta tomorrow

General

For my fellow Atlantans, I'll be doing a reading and book signing for Persuasive Games tomorrow (Sept 5) at the Barnes & Noble in Midtown, right by Georgia Tech (48 5th St. NW). Starts at 5:30pm, and refreshments will be served. ...

by Ian Bogost September 3, 2007

Persuasive Games for Cheap

General

I'm sure some of you have been eager to get your hands on my new book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, but perhaps haven't wanted to shell out for the hardcover price. Well, now you're out of excuses. The Strand bookstore in New York City has the book ...

by Ian Bogost August 28, 2007

Dr. Frasca

General

Our long-lost editor Gonzalo reports that he successfully defended his dissertation yesterday at IT University Copenhagen. Pictures here. Not surprisingly, Gonzalo's thesis was on play and rhetoric, but he takes a quite different tack than I did in Persuasive Games, focusing on play instead of procedurality. It's a significant contribution, ...

by Ian Bogost August 10, 2007

My Report on The Colbert Report

General

I've received a lot of questions about my recent appearance on The Colbert Report, and I tried to answer many of them in one place over on bogost.com. Apologies for this pointer-post, but if you're interested, you should click over there. ...

by Ian Bogost August 4, 2007

Bogost on Colbert

General

Patrick Dugan outed me, so I figured I'd better fess up here too. I'll be a guest on The Colbert Report next Tuesday (August 7). We'll be talking about the new book and some of my studio's games. ...

by Ian Bogost July 31, 2007

Come to a Book Party, August 1 in New York

General

Do you live in or around New York City? Do you like good conversation and free booze? Come to a book party Persuasive Games and Eyebeam are holding in Chelsea tomorrow evening. Even though it has been out for a few weeks, but this event is something of a launch ...

by Ian Bogost July 18, 2007

CFP: Joystick Soldiers

General

Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne send along a call for papers for what looks like an interesting new anthology: Joystick Soldiers: The military/war video game reader. Abstracts due September 17. The editors seek essays on military/war-themed video games which explore the multifaceted cultural, social, and economic linkages between ...

by Ian Bogost July 9, 2007

Persuasive Games (the book) is Now Available

General

After several years of preparation, I'm excited to announce that my new book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames is now in print and shipping from your favorite bookseller, say Amazon.com for example. The book is about how videogames make arguments. I offer a theory of rhetoric for games, ...

by Ian Bogost June 20, 2007

Dr. Nick Montfort

General

Friend and collaborator Nick Montfort has defended his dissertation, Generating Narrative Variation in Interactive Fiction! Congrats Nick! The diss is about computational narration, specifically automating different narration styles in Interactive Fiction, which Nick knows a thing or two about. Nick posted a summary of his defense talk over on Grand ...

by Ian Bogost June 16, 2007

Happy Bloomsday, New Website

General

This is totally off topic, but today is Bloomsday. In celebration, I offer Bloomsday on Twitter, which I made with friend and colleague Ian McCarthy. This comes from my new "official" website, which you might also want to check out. There are still a few bugs and wrinkles, but it's ...

by Ian Bogost June 4, 2007

Serious Games and AI in London

General

There are only two days left for earlybird registration for the Apply Serious Games conference, to take place in London on June 27-28. The conference series includes the main Apply Serious Games event as well as a new event on AI for Serious Games (and other games too). Student and ...

by Ian Bogost May 22, 2007

My new column: Why We Need More Boring Games

Game Design, General

Gamasutra has published my latest Persuasive Games column, Why We Need More Boring Games. From the column: But few developers set their sights on a lower-hanging, if more bitter fruit: games that would demystify the medium, to use [Marc] Ecko’s words. Literature and film are indeed media in the service ...

by Ian Bogost May 19, 2007

Personal Democracy Forum

General

I'm at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference, perhaps almost the only speaker here talking about videogames, which should be interesting. Update (5/19): Games for Change director Suzanne Seggerman also presented on that organization's activities in the idea market. I'll admit that I'm too lazy this week to blog, but Jill ...

by Ian Bogost May 14, 2007

Sale at MIT Press

General

For another two days, MIT Press is holding a spring sale, offering most of their books at 20% off list. The sale excludes textbooks and forthcoming books, but this might be a good time to pick up some of MIT's extensive New Media catalog... say maybe my book Unit Operations, ...

by Ian Bogost April 29, 2007

Register for the Games for Change Conference

General

Registration has opened for the Fourth Annual Games for Change Festival, New York City, June 11-12, 2007. ...

by Ian Bogost March 29, 2007

Living Game Worlds at Georgia Tech

General

Today (Thursday, March 29) Georgia Tech is holding the third annual Living Game Worlds conference. This year's theme is "Playing with Reality" and we have keynote speakers Katie Salen and Tracy Fullerton, as well as many special guests including Cindy Poremba, Liz Losh, Sam Roberts, and more. I'll be participating ...

by Ian Bogost March 28, 2007

Persuasive Games in Playboy

General, Newsgames

Playboy magazine devoted the Trend Watch portion of their page on games in the April issue on Games that give you something to think about as you twitch. Persuasive Games' Arcade Wire: Airport Security makes the list, as does Molleindustria's McDonald's Videogame, GameLab/UNICEF's Ayiti: Cost of Life, and Super Columbine ...

by Ian Bogost March 12, 2007

GDC 2007 Poetry

Game Design, General

We've been completely silent for the last week due to the Game Developers Conference, which just wrapped. Apologies to our readers: I didn't blog a stitch during the event. That said, you can find Mia Consalvo's wrapup of our Game Studies Download over on Terra Nova (get the list itself ...

by Ian Bogost March 3, 2007

Jobs and Fests in NYC

General

Two pieces of news from the city that never sleeps. First, Parsons the New School for Design is hiring for four new positions in the Communication Design and Technology Department: Henry Wolf Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Communication Design, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Design+Technology and Assistant/Associate Professor, ...

by Ian Bogost March 2, 2007

Bogost's Game Developers Conference schedule

General

GDC is next week, and for those of you attending I thought I'd share my speaking schedule for the event. Session: Persuasive Games: Introduction to Procedural Rhetoric Session: Designing Selene: Theory-based Game Design and Data Mining(I'm not actually speaking at this one, but Debbie Reese will cover a game about ...

by Ian Bogost February 21, 2007

Persuasive Games (the book) is in the can

General

Or in the box. Or whatever the right metaphor is for books. I just shipped off the index yesterday for my new book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, which means the project is out of my hands and in those of the printer. The book should be out ...

by Ian Bogost February 14, 2007

Atari VCS Valentines

General

I'm somewhat obsessed with the Atari VCS (2600), both as a critic and an amateur programmer. Nick Montfort and I are currently writing a book on the VCS, the first in the new Platform Studies series we're series editing at MIT Press. I'm also teaching a graduate class this term ...

by Ian Bogost February 7, 2007

Serious Games Interactive is hiring

General

Serious Games Interactive, led by WCG friend Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, has announced several open jobs. The group created Global Conflicts: Palestine and is currently working on some new projects. Deadline is in a little over a week, and keep in mind that applicants will have to be willing to move to ...

by Ian Bogost January 31, 2007

Slamdance recap

General

Patrick Dugan has written a recap of the Slamdance festival, which you can now read over on Gamasutra. He covers the games that presented their work. Go read it, but here are a couple interesting tidbits: Ledonne ... was a bit annoyed at Baxter's lauding of Cloud as an ideal ...

by Ian Bogost January 29, 2007

Mobile Persuasion, this week at Stanford

General

On Friday, Stanford University is hosting the Mobile Persuasion conference, which "will bring together over 200 innovators, researchers, and companies creating mobile technologies that change people’s beliefs and behaviors. Applications include health, commerce, activism, social networking, advertising, conservation, and mobile gaming. This full-day event will feature expert talks and panels ...

by Ian Bogost January 26, 2007

Slamdance Game Competition Ends in Dissolution

General

In the wake of the controversy, many of us have been waiting to learn of the outcome of the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemakers Competition. There are not yet full reports from those in attendance (although Patrick Dugan promises one early next week), but I do have some snippets of news from ...

by Ian Bogost January 23, 2007

IndieCade comments on Slamdance Controversy

General

IndieCade, a new independent game festival that plans to have its first show in spring 2008, has posted a response to the Slamdance controversy. An excerpt: We believe that the role of a festival – especially an independent games festival — is to provide a place to screen and discuss ...

by Ian Bogost January 20, 2007

Serious Games Summit GDC Keynote + Schedule

General

The Serious Games Summit GDC 2007 schedule and first keynote have been announced. I'll be presenting a lecture called Persuasive Games: Introduction to Procedural Rhetoric. Other pics include Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern on next-gen conversational characters; Dave Gilbert on his rabbinical graphical adventure The Shivah; David Shaffer on learning ...

by Ian Bogost January 19, 2007

Today: Hal Halpin answers questions about the ECA

General

Today, GamePolitics is hosting a Q&A with Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) president Hal Halpin. For today only, you can leave questions in the comments, and Halpin will respond... looks like they are in the process of moving his answers out of the comments thread and into the main part of ...

by Ian Bogost January 17, 2007

Help us create the GDC Game Studies Download

General

Last year, Jane McGonigal, Mia Consalvo, and I hosted the Game Studies Download at the Game Developers Conference. We attempted to assemble the top 10 research findings from the previous year and rapidly summarize them for what turned out to be a totally packed room of game developers. This year, ...

by Ian Bogost December 27, 2006

Pixel Art Contest

General

We're back from our short Xmas respite. Check out this contest for old skool pixel art skillz the Strasbourg-based mobile game studio Mighty Troglodytes are putting on. Each entry (deadline 15 Jan 07) requires an isometric character with a walk animation, background tiles, and a few other elements. Winners get ...

by Gonzalo Frasca December 22, 2006

Have a playful 2007!!!!

General

Once again, it's time for thanking you for being around. Personally, I'd like also to thank Ian for posting so much interesting stuff while I've been struggling to finish my dissertation (almost ready! One month to go!) This has been a great year for my studio, Powerful Robot Games. We ...

by Ian Bogost December 15, 2006

Live by the pen, die by the spam

General

Spam has been overpowering our server off and on for the past two weeks and bringing the site down occasionally. I've decided to disable comments until we can figure it out. A good excuse to link comments from your own blogs, if you got 'em. ...

by Ian Bogost December 6, 2006

More jobs at Games for Change

General

Games for Change lets us know they have more job openings, this time for an Executive Director and Online Social Network Manager-Designer. Click through for the full ad. ...

by Ian Bogost December 4, 2006

Announcing Platform Studies

General

Ian Bogost & Nick Montfort are pleased to announce a new MIT Press series, Investigating the relationships between the hardware and software design of computing systems and the creative works produced on those systems. The first book in the series is forthcoming in 2008: Video Computer System: The Atari 2600 ...

by Ian Bogost November 23, 2006

Persuasive Games among This Year's Hot Toys, for the green anyway

General

We've stopped posting press coverage here, for fear that it will just look like self-aggrandizement, but every now and then there's something worth sharing with our readers here. Here's such a one. I found out today that The Green Guide, which bills itself as a "green living source for today's ...

by Gonzalo Frasca November 22, 2006

Very serious about trivial games

General

Ok, this post is totally off-topic but I really wanted to share the good news. Cartoon Network just released new data about Big Fat Awesome House Party, the game that my company Powerful Robot developed for them. According to AWN, " to date, the game has attracted 6.6 million registered ...

by Ian Bogost November 19, 2006

Conference on Games for Crisis Response and Managment

General

The 4th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, Delft, the Netherlands, May 13-16 2007. Game-friendly. Submissions due January 15, 2007. ...

by Ian Bogost November 19, 2006

Game Design and Development Job at RIT

General

There's a game design and development job open at the Rochester Institute of Technology, starting in Fall 2007. Click through for the full call. ...

by Ian Bogost October 31, 2006

Live from the Serious Games Summit (day 2)

General

Here we go, day two of the serious games summit. Keynote - Designing for Behavior in Massive Multiplayer Games Jack Emmert The Challenge Map for Serious Games Howard Phillips, Roger Smith Is it Cheating, Learning, or Both? Exploring the Boundaries in Videogames Mia Consalvo ...

by Ian Bogost October 30, 2006

Live from the Serious Games Summit (day 1)

General

I'm at the Serious Games Summit in Washington, DC. It's been a while since I've offered live coverage of an event, so I thought I'd try to liveblog a bit. This post will update during the course of the day. Henry Jenkins - Keynote - Serious Games in the Age ...

by Ian Bogost October 29, 2006

Addicting Games contest for indies

General

AddictingGames, which has been publishing our "Arcade Wire" series of newsgames, has announced a new contest for independent developers. The stakes are pretty high, with cash prizes totaling $20,000 available. The games have to be written in Flash and they have to be new, but anyone can enter, even kids ...

by Ian Bogost September 28, 2006

Digital Media jobs at Georgia Tech

General

The Georgia Institute of Technology School of Literature Communication and Culture, where I teach and research, has job openings this year in fields related to WCG readers. Click through for the full announcement. ...

by Ian Bogost September 27, 2006

20% discount on Serious Games Summit DC pass

General

Want to go to the Serious Games Summit DC next month for $119 less? Register here and use the priority code ADVSDC for 20% off the earlybird rate. Act fast, it's only good until October 2, when the price goes up to $795 and the 20% off is no longer ...

by Ian Bogost September 24, 2006

Jobs at Games for Change

General

Games for Change is hiring. They are looking for several interns as well as hiring new staff. The following positions are available immediately, and we're looking to fill them by the end of September if possible: one full-time opening, a National Events Manager (PDF), and three internships, Games Curator/Researcher, Development/Events ...

by Ian Bogost August 19, 2006

Small Changes at Water Cooler Games

General

Everyone's always talking about "big changes," but isn't it the small ones that usually matter most? Well, small changes are afoot here at Water Cooler Games. To wit, we have redesigned the homepage. Slightly. We'd redesigned this page a while back and it never really worked for me. It was ...

by Ian Bogost August 14, 2006

Serious Games Summit GDC07 Call for Papers Open

General

Serious Games Source has announced the open call for submissions for the Serious Games Summit at next year's GDC (March 5-6, 2007, in San Francisco). Apparently next year's GDC theme is "Taking Control," although I'm not sure how that will apply to the Serious Games domain... maybe more military games ...

by Ian Bogost August 1, 2006

Review of Convergence Culture, by Henry Jenkins

Advergames, Business Games, General

I read Henry Jenkins's new book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide this weekend. The book is a short, smart, buttery read on a hot topic, and it is sure to draw both popular and academic interest. Jenkins is a multifaceted media scholar, a critic of vaudeville, fan ...

by Ian Bogost June 28, 2006

Games for Change Conference

General

For the past two days I have been in New York at the Games for Change 2006 Conference. I'm afraid that I haven't been taking detailed notes, but you can follow links to coverage from del.icio.us tag 06-G4. ...

by Ian Bogost June 19, 2006

Game Jobs! Game Jobs! Game Jobs!

General

Water Cooler Games received the following email last week: Dear Site Owner/Webmaster, In doing a keyword check of our brand names and other intellectual property, we found the name "Game Jobs" being used on your site to promote recruitment of game industry professionals. GameJobs.com has operated employing that usage for ...

by Ian Bogost June 2, 2006

Conference Call

General

A few submission calls of note. First, the Serious Games Summit DC is accepting abstract submissions for the fall event (Oct 30-31). Hurry, the submissions close June 5! Second, the Come Out & Play Festival, a forum for public games, is accepting submissions for games through June 30. The festival ...

by Ian Bogost June 1, 2006

End of Deadline Grab Bag

General

It's been a busy month. Our semester at Georgia Tech let out in early May, but I've been working since then finishing up my new book. It's called Persuasive Games: Videogames and Procedural Rhetoric, a topic that should appeal directly to our readers here. I just finally sent off the ...

by Ian Bogost March 27, 2006

Unit Operations: My new book on videogame criticism

General

MIT Press has just published my new book Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism! I try to do two things in the book. First, I describe a kind of criticism that accounts for both computation and critical theory, which I hope will bridge computer science and humanism. "Unit Operations" ...

by Ian Bogost March 26, 2006

GDC 2006 Rundown

General

For the last week I've been at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose. I spent the first two days at the Serious Games Summit, giving two talks on Monday. Then I gave two more talks on Friday during traditional GDC. It was a busy week and thus I didn't ...

by Gonzalo Frasca March 10, 2006

Apply Serious Games

General

If your calendar tells you that you are in late May and your GPS claims that you are in London, bingo! You would then have the opportunity to attend to Apply Serious Games 2006, a two day event that will take place in Central London on May 25-26. Learn more ...

by Ian Bogost February 15, 2006

Living Game Worlds Symposium Webcast

General

Tomorrow (February 16), the Georgia Institute of Technology graduate program in digital media (in which I teach and research) and the GVU Center host the second annual Living Game Worlds symposium, on "Design Processes and the Future of Expressive Computing." The event includes keynotes from Will Wright and Dale Herigstad, ...

by Ian Bogost January 25, 2006

Facade wins Slamdance Grand Jury Prize!

General

Holy shit! 5 minutes ago Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern's Fa軋de won the Slamdance Grand Jury Prize! W00t! ...

by Ian Bogost January 23, 2006

Live from Slamdance

General

I've had very limited connectivity here in Park City, but I am here at the second annual game festival at Slamdance. We were lucky enough to be here last year, so I can report on the changes and evolution of the festival. The games are both more and less prominent ...

by Ian Bogost January 6, 2006

Creating Games and Simulation in Learning Summit

General, Health & Medicine Games

We're finally back from the holidays (and preparations for the semester), so expect things to get back to normal here. In the meantime, here's a quick note on an upcoming event in Long Beach, on games and simulation hosted by Stanford University Medical Media & Information Technologies. Speakers include Joe ...

by Gonzalo Frasca December 23, 2005

Merry Christmas (with Dinosaurs!)

General

Once again, here I go with my rant. What is wrong with Christmas? Well, there are no dinos to start with! Everybody knows that dinosaurs are cool and nice. Even the King Kong movie, which is about a giant gorilla, had to include some dinos on it. In any ...

by Ian Bogost December 16, 2005

Indie Game Events + Persuasive Games at Slamdance

General

It's the season for independent game exhibitions. First, a call for papers, games, and machinima has been issued for media@terra 06, a festival. Click over to Grand Text Auto for the full call. Submissions for the game exhibition are due April 28, and they're particularly looking for "games with socio-political ...

by Gonzalo Frasca December 11, 2005

Animal Crossing DS and the music industry

General

(via Boing Boing) One of the characters in the recently released Animal Crossing DS seems to have a problem with the music industry. It seems that this singer character likes to distribute his songs for free. I wonder if this text is also available on the original Japanese version or ...

by Ian Bogost December 7, 2005

Digital Arts and Cultures 2005 recap

General

It's the busy time at the end of the semester, which has partly caused a slow-down in news here at WCG. The other cause was the recent Digital Arts and Cultures (DAC) conference. This year's conference was held in Copenhagen Denmark last week. Gonzalo and I were both there, as ...

by Gonzalo Frasca November 22, 2005

Serious Games Summit Europe 2005

General

The Serious Games Summit is coming to Europe, to Lyon, France, more precisely. This one day event will take place on December 5th. Lyon is a great city, well-known in France for the quality of its restaurants. You can learn more about the summit here. My ITU colleague Jesper Juul ...

by Ian Bogost November 1, 2005

Live from the Serious Games Summit DC (day 2)

General, Religious Games

Here we are at day two of the Serious Games Summit DC 2005. I'll be live blogging to the best of my ability today. For my coverage from yesterday, click here. There were many concurrent sessions both days, and I had a talk both today and yesterday, du ring which ...

by Ian Bogost October 31, 2005

Live from the Serious Games Summit DC (day 1)

General

I'm in Washington at the 2005 Serious Games Summit DC. The venue has WiFi and I'll be covering the sessions here, as best as I can keep up, today and tomorrow. Stay tuned below for updates throughout the day. There are numerous tracks at once, and I can only cover ...

by Ian Bogost October 28, 2005

Academic Game Jobs at Georgia Tech

General

The Georgia Institute of Technology, where I teach and research, is hiring. Georgia Tech has one of the world's oldest graduate degrees in digital media, and we also have perhaps the nation's only Ph.D. in that field. Our research community includes the Experimental Game Lab, and among my colleagues are ...

by Gonzalo Frasca September 28, 2005

Game creator to be trialed in Spain

General

Via Elastico.net, we learn about "Matanza Cofrade", a Spanish videogame that got its author into some serious trouble. I haven't been able to download the game yet (a link, anybody?) but supposedly it deals with shooting down participants of (a real) religious procession in Spain. According to Spanish writer Arturo ...

by Gonzalo Frasca September 16, 2005

Tokyo Game Show Live

General

No agenda here but I wanted to let you guys know that I am posting Tokyo Game Show pictures at my other blog, Ludology.org. Enjoy! ...

by Ian Bogost September 14, 2005

Conferences galore

General

Every now and then a million things happen at once. This next month is one of those times. Here's the lowdown on some of the conferences about or related to videogames with an agenda in the coming month. Games for Health, in Baltimore, MD Sep 23 - 24. I'll be ...

by Gonzalo Frasca July 26, 2005

Christians + Game

General, Religious Games

News.com reports (via Reuters) on Christian games. As you may know, the 4th Christian Game Developers Conference (CGDC) will take place this week in Portland, Oregon. The Reuters report includes some interesting facts and sales figures, as well as quoting some of the developers. ...

by Ian Bogost June 14, 2005

Welcome to the new Water Cooler Games

General

Gonzalo and I started WCG back in the fall of 2003. We knew that a website covering the new genres of games outside entertainment, what we call "videogames with an agenda," had great potential. We've been overwhelmed with the success of the site. But I'd never been entirely happy with ...

by Ian Bogost June 8, 2005

Conference Roundup

General

Lots of conferences to mention in the next couple months. Next week is DiGRA 2005 of course (June 16 - 19), in Vancouver. Right after that is Supernova 2005 (June 20 - 22) in San Francisco. True, it's a more general technology conference, but I'll be there speaking on advergames, ...

by Ian Bogost May 9, 2005

Nordic Serious Games Summit

General

The Agora Game Lab has published a call for papers for the Nordic Serious Games Summit, to take place August 2-3 in Jyväskylä, Finland. Like the Serious Games Summit, the goal is to feature non-entertainment games, but this time specifically research and development in the Nordic region. ...

by Ian Bogost March 6, 2005

GDC and the Serious Games Summit

General

Well, it's GDC time again, and with it the second Serious Games Summit to be held at the conference. While it's still a tutorial track (held during the first two days before "traditional" GDC) and thus not drawing as much of the regular conference traffic, I hear there are over ...

by Ian Bogost February 10, 2005

Living Game Worlds Symposium at Georgia Tech

General

On March 15 Ivan Allen College of Georgia Tech is presenting the Ivan Allen Jr. Award for Progress and Service to legendary game designer Will Wright, Co-Founder and Chief Designer of Maxis, and creator of Sim City and the Sims. In honor of Will and in celebration of the 10th ...

by Ian Bogost January 25, 2005

Slamdance Winners

General

This evening saw the end of the first Slamdance Big C Independent Game Competition. The jury winner was Revolved, by Alter Ego Studios. The audience winner was Scavenger Hunt, by a group of DigiPen students. Congratulations to the winners! I'm tired after a long weekend, but I'll reiterate that the ...

by Ian Bogost January 23, 2005

Slamdance vs. IGF

General

We did our judging presentation today and also spoke with a few press outlets here at the festival. Being an indie game exhibitor at an indie film festival makes for a very legitimating feeling. Without a doubt, this is a much more successful independent game festival than the Independent Game ...

by Ian Bogost January 22, 2005

Slamdance and the Real Indie Games

General

Today was the first day of the Slamdance Independent Game Competition. We set up this morning and spent most of the day showing our game to festival attendees and chatting with the other developers. Bawls is sponsoring the competition and has provided a seemingly infinite supply of their hypercaffeinated guarana ...

by Gonzalo Frasca December 24, 2004

Merry Christmas!

General

The folks at Powerful Robot put together this Christmas postcard and, well, I thought of sharing it with you guys (and publicly humiliating Ian for not having a postcard of his own :P That's ok Ian, you can join me and wish all our readers a Merry Christmas. What? Oh, ...

by Gonzalo Frasca November 17, 2004

Reality BIG GAME

General

Telepresence meets Deer Hunter meets Ender's Game meets Reality Shows meets videogames. Wow! You may think it is quite immoral to shoot animals and that's understandable, but this Internet-based hunting "game" is at least something to pay attention to: you can kill real animals from your home computer. Click and ...

by Ian Bogost October 31, 2004

CFP: Ludologica Retro

General, Social Games

Videogame researchers longing to sport your striped polo shirts and off-the-shoulder oversize sweaters, wait no longer. While a little out of bounds of the usual themes of WCG, I want to announce the call for papers for Ludologica Retro, Volume 1: Vintage Arcade (1971 - 1984) a spinoff series of ...

by Ian Bogost October 28, 2004

Two positions at Georgia Tech

General

My department at Georgia Tech has two positions open this year that may interest WCG readers, one in film and media studies and one in digital media theory and practice. Click through for the full descriptions and application instructions. ...

by Ian Bogost October 22, 2004

Happy Birthday Water Cooler Games!

General

Today is Water Cooler Games first birthday! It's been a wild year for videogames with an agenda -- from Gonzalo and Newsgaming.com's September 12 last October to the widely publicized Videogames with an Agenda game art exhibit we just curated in London this October. We'd like to thank all of ...

by Gonzalo Frasca October 21, 2004

Control the system

General

Not a game, but a political animation made with games. Worth checking out [via Kotaku, of course] ...

by Ian Bogost October 9, 2004

Jouer pour Derrida

General

Last night, French philosopher Jacques Derrida died of pancreatic cancer. He was 74. In some ways, this news wasn't unexpected. Derrida's diagnosis had been public as early as January 2003, and I knew early this year that he had cancelled his annual spring seminar at UC Irvine (I was still ...

by Gonzalo Frasca October 2, 2004

"charged with possessing child abuse computer games"

General

In years of studing alternative computer games, this is the first reference that I find of pedophilic videogames. I guess it should make sense, since their very existence should be quite limited to certain circles. Anyway, it is not a topic that I am interested in exploring, but I think ...

by Ian Bogost September 20, 2004

Calm before the storm

General

With two hurricanes behind us and one more out in the Caribbean, weather analogies seem very apt. So, consider this a bit of foreshadowing. Things have been a bit quiet here of late (despite my trip to Games for Health), but they're about to get much more interesting. Stay tuned ...

by Ian Bogost September 15, 2004

Serious Games Summit DC about to get Seriously Expensive

General

Just a reminder that today (Wednesday, September 15) is the last day to register for Serious Games DC before the price rises to US$500 US$650. That's 200 bones more and no extra mint on your pillow. Water Cooler Games readers can still use priority code WCG4 to get $25 off ...

by Ian Bogost September 7, 2004

Conference reminders

General

A quick reminder about two upcoming conferences of direct interest to WCG readers. (1) The Games for Health Conference is Sep 16-17 in Madison Wisconsin. Registration is here. (2) The Serious Games Summit DC is Oct 18 - 19 in Washington DC. WCG readers are eligible for a $25 discount ...

by Ian Bogost August 29, 2004

Extended Bonanza! Gamespot on Game Studies

General

Holy cow! Gamespot has published a massive article by frequent game journalist Lauren Gonzalez on Redefining Games: How Academia is Reshaping Games of the Future. This frontpage, 15 page article covers Newsgaming, Water Cooler Games, Ludology, The Howard Dean Game, Façade, Grand Text Auto, Gonzalo's program at IT University Copenhagen, ...

by Ian Bogost August 6, 2004

Serious Games Summit DC announced; discount for WCG readers

General

CMP and the Serious Games Initiative have announced the Serious Games Summit DC, which will take place on October 18-19, 2004 in Washington DC. The event is designed to give game developers the opportunity to learn from successful serious games applications and make connections with the groups involved in these ...

by Ian Bogost July 6, 2004

Critical Simulation at ebr

General

Back in March, MIT Press published Grand Theft Auto friend Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's edited volume First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Noah just announced that the Critical Simulation section of First Person is online at Electronic Book Review (ebr). This section in particular might be ...

by Ian Bogost June 28, 2004

Busy: Games & Painting

Advergames, Game Design, General

Some of you may have noticed that it's been a bit slow here on WCG of late, and here's why: I'm trying to get my new game done for a launch this week, AND I've been moving into my new house in Atlanta. So, I've been making games and painting. ...

by Ian Bogost June 6, 2004

Pixelblocks: Real life pixel art

General

I just got these. I have 2800 of them now. They are little tiny translucent blocks that connect top to bottom, but also side to side. You could use them as game design aids, especially for pixel art objects, but it's a LOT of work. They come in many colors, ...

by Ian Bogost May 19, 2004

DDOS Attacks at WCG Webhost

General

In case anyone has had trouble accessing our site, our hosting provider has been subjected to distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks for the past couple days. They're working to resolve. ...

by Ian Bogost May 10, 2004

See you at E3

General

I'm in LA this week for the Education Arcade and E3. I'll try to blog what I can. If you're here in LA and want to meet up, drop me a line and let me know! ...

by Ian Bogost April 4, 2004

Me @ the IGDA Ivory Tower

General

I wrote this month's IGDA Ivory Tower column, on "The Muse of the Video Game," or the role of inspiration in game studies. Update: Discussion of the article and related issues at Slashdot. ...

by Ian Bogost April 2, 2004

ALT+CTRL Festival of Independent and Alternative Games

General

UC Irvine and the Beall Center for Art and Technology have announced a call for submissions for the ALT+CTRL Festival of Independent and Alternative Games, to be held this Sept/Oct. Given our recent musings on the problems with certain recent indie game fests, this looks to be a good show. ...

by Ian Bogost March 31, 2004

Serious Games Summit Wiki

General

I know, I still haven't posted my comments about the Serious Games Summmit. They're coming. In the meantime, check out the cool Serious Games Summit Wiki Ben Sawyer got started. ...

by Ian Bogost March 29, 2004

IGF Award Controversy

General

Game Tunnel published an article on the IGF Awards Controversy. For those of you who don't know, the game Savage: The Battle for Newerth won the Technical Excellence, Audience, and Seamus McNally Grand Prize awards, a total of $17,000 in cash plus an Intel workstation, not to mention the associated ...

by Ian Bogost March 20, 2004

See you at GDC!

General

Gonzalo and I will both be at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose next week. First, we'll be presenting a case study of our Dean for Iowa Game at the Serious Games Summit, and later Gonzalo is running a roundtable on academic/industry issues. If you'll be at GDC, drop ...

by Ian Bogost March 19, 2004

WGA Nonfiction Forum

General

Angelenos and SoCal visitors may want to consider attending the Writers Guild of America's Nonfiction Forum this Saturday (the 20th) in Beverly Hills. I'll be on the "Nonfiction Frontiers" panel, along with Large Format Cinema pioneer Andy Gellis, Rocketeer screenwriter and current EA IP Veep Danny Bilson, documentarian Andrew Solt, ...

by Ian Bogost March 18, 2004

$100 engine license for Indie developers

General

Garage Games, makers of the Torque Game Engine, announces that Indie developers with company revenues less than $250k/year can publish their games "anywhere at any price without upgrading to the full Commercial License." To qualify, you have to credit the engine in your splash/credit screen. Read the details here. ...

by Ian Bogost March 8, 2004

Getting along in game studies

General

This Saturday witnessed the Form, Content, and Video Game Criticism conference at Princeton, previously covered in the NY Times and mentioned by Gonzalo over at Ludology.org. I didn't attend the conference, so I've only read comments posted by Nick Montfort at Grand Text Auto and Dennis Jerz on his blog. ...

by Ian Bogost March 6, 2004

The Barony of Lee

General

Even though this is rather off-topic for WCG, in light of the ongoing discussions (1, 2, 3, 4) on Terra Nova about auctioning virtual property, I thought I'd share it. For the past year or so, a friend of mine has been working to execute the sale of the Lee ...

by Ian Bogost February 27, 2004

Game studies on the other coast

General

I'm happy to announce that I'll be joining the faculty at Georgia Tech this fall, continuing my work on game criticism and game rhetoric in the context of their IDT program. As Michael Mateas mentions today, we'll look forward to taking on the Copenhagen ITU for the title of "the ...

by Ian Bogost February 27, 2004

Real Criticism of Real Games

General

Mark Bernstein (chief scientist of Eastgate Systems, makers of hypertext authoring system Storyspace) has a piece called Conflicts and Interest in TEKKA (paid membership required) on "the remarkable failures of business games." Sez Mark: Let's face is: game studies are going to stay stuck until we have lots of real ...

by Ian Bogost February 27, 2004

Mario's Tragic Story

General

An amazing set of animations about "the tragic story of Mario and his ultimate downfall." I am truly awed at how this series creates drama out of 8 bit games. Yes, it's tongue-in-cheek... or is it? Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 (thanks to Perry) ...

by Ian Bogost February 14, 2004

Ludology via the AP

General

Today this AP story on game research found its way across the wires and into many newspapers around the country and world. Gonzalo gets a nice quote in the article, along with all our friends from this strange new land. Now that the popular press has equated "ludology" with a ...

by Ian Bogost January 24, 2004

The Gap

General

I gave a talk today on games and the interesting stuff that happens in the gap between the game and the player. It would be interesting to post here, but I'm having one of those blog moral dilemmas, as there are some copyrighted images in the presentation. Also, the presentation ...

by Ian Bogost December 31, 2003

Gray Gamers

General

The Palm Beach Post reports on a phenomenon they call Gray Gaming, or the increase in computer games among "mature consumers." Despite an average player age of 29, the article reports that UK developer Codemasters conducted a survey of customers over 50, 60, or 70, receiving "over 250 replies." The ...

by Ian Bogost December 16, 2003

Busy

General

A bit quiet around here, because we're busy working on a game that I'm looking forward to sharing with all of you. It will be ready by next week, and it should be something worth seeing. Stay tuned... ...

by Ian Bogost December 2, 2003

Macromedia Central and P2P

General

Last week, Macromedia announced Central, their new occasionaly-connected application host. Central is a connection-aware desktop app container for Flash-based rich-media modules. The initial release has a pretty slick blog reader module; you download your feeds when you have connectivity, and you can read them later when you're offline. One of ...

by Gonzalo Frasca November 26, 2003

Games getting more mature

General

TotalGames.net has an article on games getting more mature, serious, adult or any adjective that means, well, less trivial. ...

by Ian Bogost November 9, 2003

Leveled Up

General

Gonzalo and I are both back from the first DiGRA conference, Level Up, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It was a great event and a sign of the amazing growth in the field. Gonzalo's written a nice overview of the conference over at ludology.org. We'll add some more news here in ...

by Ian Bogost November 3, 2003

An alternative to fun

Console & PC Games, Game Design, General

I gave a talk today at the ITU on persuasive games (I'll post a version here in the near future), and afterward we had an interesting discussion about fun in games. One of my precepts regarding rhetorical games is that they reject fun as a first principle of games. This ...