Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Game Jobs! Game Jobs! Game Jobs!

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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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Game Jobs! Game Jobs! Game Jobs!

by Ian Bogost June 19, 2006

categories: 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 ten years as of this year, and we have invested significantly in the brand and mark.

We do not ask that you remove it, but would appreciate it if you would insert another word to make the phrase more descriptive and less potentially confusing for visitors. Options to that end include: "Game Industry Jobs," "Game Business Jobs," and the like.

Should you be interested in a formal marketing partnership with our site, please feel free to contact me at your convenience. Thanks in advance for your consideration and cooperation.

Best,

[name withheld]
GameJobs

The rather forgettable GameJobs.com is run by The Crest Group, who only seem to exist in the Google Cache. According to that defunct page, they also run the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA), or used to.

Anyway, as you can see by searching this site for "game jobs", we've uses the phrase twice (prior to this post), once about two academic posts open at Georgia Tech and once informally in a discussion of movie advergames. I'm sure no one is "confused."

So to our friends at the Crest Group, note that we respond to unfounded and just plain stupid IP semi-threats with mockery. And for our readers, if you really are interested in game jobs, visit Mary-Margaret or Gamasutra.

Comments (9)

Very amusing. Never heard of them either. Of course, now that you've posted about them very soon the first result for a 'game jobs' search will be this page.. :-)

the advergamer on June 19, 2006 12:09 PM

However, this email does not beat that watercooler manufacturing company from China that kept emailing us a couple of years ago :)

Gonzalo Frasca on June 20, 2006 2:19 PM

They don't have a leg to stand on. I'm glad you ignored their baseless threats.

hoser on June 20, 2006 10:46 PM

Heck, they'll probably get more traffic as a result of this than they've gotten in the last year!

I watch most of the real job sites, and I've never heard of them.

Randy Chase on June 21, 2006 10:40 AM

I considered not posting this simply because we would drive traffic to them, but my distaste for stupid IP regimes trumped the concern.

That watercooler manufacturing email was hilarious. I wish I could find it.

Ian Bogost on June 21, 2006 3:15 PM

Very interestingly ....

Max on July 2, 2006 8:37 PM

hi my name is alex.. and im very eager to start a game testing job.. i live in las vegas and im willing to reloctate. can some one help me out..to geting my foot in the industry. where do i start looking and applying.

thank you.

alex on July 11, 2006 9:27 PM

Intellectual property on the internet, does it even exist? How vague can something be to where you can say you own words or even entire phrases. Water Cooler Games received an email from www.gamejobs.com that asked them to take the phrase "game jobs" out of one of their articles. Has the internet gone to far? So far as to where certain people think they own words?

Water Cooler Games seems to think that the site owner of www.gamejobs.com needs to get a reality check, and so do I, you can't take two words that are commonly used in speach and tell people they can't use them. Its absurd, Water Cooler Games did right by completely ignoring www.gamejobs.com's request, and infact patronized them alittle, and recommended two other gaming jobs sites instead of using www.gamejobs.com

I completely agree with Water Cooler on this one.

kmurray3 on September 13, 2006 3:04 AM

rofl.

i'm at a loss of words in regards to their humiliating threat that turned out to be nothing more than broken links and such. muahahahhaa.

fff5ee on October 28, 2006 1:13 AM