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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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Liberalopoly

by Ian Bogost September 28, 2004

categories: Political Games

PoliGames is selling a political board game called Liberalopoly. The player chooses from a crop of real Democratic figures (not all of them real presidential hopefuls) Here's the publisher's blurb:

Now you can step into the shoes of your least favorite Liberal! Take their wild ride through the twists and turns of an ass-backwards game to get into office at any price.

It's another one of those variants on Monopoly. Not very original, but I guess consumers understand how Monopoly works. The game is US$29.95 (plus an oppressive $8.95 shipping), and I can imagine people paying that price for it... while I can't currently imagine people paying that price for a computer game on the same subject. A familiar platform can go a long way.

Libera