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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GSN's Saddam Hussein Newsgame
by Ian Bogost December 28, 2006
categories: Newsgames

The Game Show Network has been releasing small newsgames recently, including So You Think You Can Drive, about Mel Gibson's September DUI incident, and Throw the Book at OJ, about OJ Simpson's ill-fated book deal. Their new game is Saddam's Hangman, an inversion of the classic word guessing game: the player must hang Saddam before he gets an appeal. As with the other GSN games, it's more opportunistic than interesting. The network does seem to be getting these newsgames out more rapidly, but I think the Mel Gibson game remains the only one with any real editorial commentary.