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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Laden vs. USA
by Ian Bogost February 13, 2004
categories:
Political Games
Thanks to Clive Thompson for unearthing Laden vs. USA, which appears to be a handheld electronic game out of Taiwan. I think Clive's comments about it are dead on. Here's what he says:
It's a pretty bleak specimen, but in a strictly academic sense, this is an interesting example of the trend towards using games as a form of political commentary. In this case, however, I suspect the motivation is just good old-fashioned profiteering. It's unlikely that the game has any political content specific to Al Qaeda or the USA. On the contrary, it's probably just some entrepreneur who bought a few truckloads of a generic war-like "shoot the soldiers" game; there are hundreds of these things produced every year by electronics sweatshops in Asia. Then they printed some labels to "rebrand" the generic game with a purported bin Laden theme, slapped 'em on the units, and sold them.
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Food Insofar As They Give You Food
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Royalty Rate Reset
Rocks are Rocks
Comments
Michael Wilton on Gamification is Bullshit
Adam on Gamification is Bullshit
Sot on Gamification is Bullshit
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