Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Junk-Food Games: Game Rhetoric in the WSJ

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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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Junk-Food Games: Game Rhetoric in the WSJ

by Ian Bogost May 3, 2004

categories: Advergames

Big article in the Wall Street Journal today on Junk-Food Games (paid subscription required): "Online Arcades Draw Fire For Immersing Kids in Ads; Ritz Bits Wrestling, Anyone?"

Some interesting excerpts:

Marketers love Web games because they deliver brand messages cost-effectively. The cost to air a 30-second TV commercial ranges from $7.31 per thousand viewers during the day to $29.90 during prime time, according to SQAD Inc., a Tarrytown, N.Y., media-research firm. In contrast, there are no costs to "air" advergames. Spreading developments costs across the typical number of players, advergaming can cost less than $2 per thousand users, proponents say.

And...

Some worry that the absorbing nature of the games, the age of many of the players and the data collected in the surveys make for an uneven playing field. Advertisers are "being allowed to prey on your weakness," says Jeff Chester, head of the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington, D.C., watchdog. Companies can create "little profiles of children and dangle ads for fast foods and snacks that they know they have a weakness for," he adds. "I consider that kind of advertising to be really unfair."

Clearly, there's not just a little bit of melodrama going on here, but I guess that's par for the course. But what's most interesting to me is that advertisers, consumers, and the media are admitting that game rhetoric does exist, which is great. As for the conclusions, well, Wildtangent EVP David Madden says, "As opposed to a 30-second commercial where you're being beaten over the head with the message, these games are a very benevolent approach to marketing." Forrester analyst Catherine Li calls advergames a "sly approach."

I wonder if what we are really seeing in these comments is not only a response to junk food, but also a response to the very idea that games can perform rhetorically. No matter the individual fears about this topic, the public acknowledgment of rhetoric in games is promising, and important.