Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Magic circle? You are kidding, right?

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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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Magic circle? You are kidding, right?

by Gonzalo Frasca December 7, 2005

categories: Propaganda Games

Games are virtual and they only represent an alternative to reality. Yeah, sure. Here's a very interesting article from the New York Times (Free registration required. Well, it's not really free, they keep your data) about how North Koreans are the bad guys du jour and how, interestingly, South Koreans do not like their neighbours to be demonized by (Western) videogames. I wonder why we need to go look for bad guys so far away when there are so many available right next door?

Comments (2)

it's been a long time since i so enjoyed reading posts in the net. two thumbs up! when circle is cosmos it will loose opponents: http://www.inman.com/ , White is feature of Red Table when soldier play chair hope , when Stake Percieve Stake Double standard chips is always collective game

jared adams on December 17, 2005 9:57 PM

If there ain't a magic circle it ain't a game. Everything else is Life... no matter how bizarre.

By the way, is the previous post supposed to be in English?

Ernest Adams on March 9, 2006 12:50 AM

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