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.
Wired reports from the Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Oregon. I find particularly interesting that the article is so concerned about the violence or lack of it in these Christian games. Why would Christian games need to be non-violent? Has anybody read the Bible lately? I mean, the book has tons of extremely violent content (God kills little children when he gets mad, remember?) Tons of violence on the book and none on the games? Come on! Certainly the Old Testament is more bloody than the New, but if you have seen Mel Gibson's opus it should not surprise you that there is a bit of violence in the New Testament, too. I am puzzled, really. The Bible is a fantastic book and, as such, a great source of inspiration for new creations, especially videogames. However, assuming that just because Christianity preaches peace the games have to be peaceful, that's a bit problematic to me, especially if you happen to have read their Holy Book.
Making Books
Academic Professional Job Opening
Slashdot Q&A
The Bulldog and the Pegasus
Speculative Realism Aggregator Update
Comments
Ian Bogost on Making Books
Mark N. on Making Books
Krystian Majewski on Making Books
Gamification101 on Gamification is Bullshit
James on Help Feed the Speculative Realism Feed
The Curse of Cow Clicker
Beyond the Elbow-Patched Playground
Low-Earth Lamentation
Shit Crayons
Aerotropolis
Against Aca-Fandom
There are no Blown Calls in Football
We Think in Public
What is Object-Oriented Ontology?
The Metaphysics Videogame
Cascading Failure
Top Ten Reasons I Returned My Kindle
Carrying On Over Carry-Ons
Reading Online Sucks







