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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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Me on Advergames

by Ian Bogost July 22, 2004

categories: Advergames

eMarketing IQ just published an article about advergames in which I'm extensively (maybe embarrasingly extensively) quoted. You can read the article here. Here's an especially useful bit:

But Bogost cautions for those considering this avenue, "It’s not enough to just have your brand in a game. What we see is the opportunity to get away from associative information and get back to tangible information. How will that product really add to your consumers' lives? The question to ask is 'How can I let people experience this product in a game?'"

Comments (5)

i don't see how associative info would be a problem, especially if advergames seemingly distance themselves from incessant branding by inventing gameplay. if that makes sense. the game should be on more neutral territory than convential print/tv ads. less of an assualt. i think burger king's subservient chicken is an example of what i'm taking about. it's got the brandname/logo before the flash game starts, but afterwards the "low-definition" video/game takes over. i guess big corporations don't need to say much. no tangible info or hunger after my 20 minutes of sample play. Also the game's pretty subversive considering the amount vulgarity in the text-to-action. even "fuck burger king i'd never eat that shit" gets a response- a thumps up nonetheless. all fun/play. meanwhile real fast food chickens live in terrible conditions. as seen on a recent media blitz (by the germs). i don't want advertisers to succeed, but i can see where all of this is going. also it's important how surfers navigate to the site. An unobnoxius link to the game from a seemingly neutral site helps. like i did from grand-text-auto to the subservient/subversive chicken. in the end, associative info and visual euphemisms still can't disguise the vomit i have for advertising in general.

zombie gluesniffer on July 22, 2004 6:11 AM

+ spell checker: re-read

conventional like the oven

slight dyslexia - "a thumbs up nonetheless"

zombie gluesniffer on July 22, 2004 6:18 AM

Massive, Inc., whose plans I derided recently, has been given a $5.5M infusion from venture capitalists, according to Terra Nova. Elsewhere, eMarketingIQ reports that advergaming is "newly viable," and heavily features Ian Bogost of Watercool...

Clickable Culture - Massive Advergaming on the Horizon on July 22, 2004 4:49 PM

Picture this, you turn on the tv to watch a show. When the commercial comes on what do you do? I know it would take to long to list here.

Now when you go to play an online game you see the advertising and probably ignores it but will play the game for 15-20 min. Guess what? You liked it so much you come back and tell some friends in the process. Do you have any idea of the amount of websites getting one hit and no returns? The magic number is seven exposures before someone will take a look or decide to buy. The advergame serves this purpose well. The Fortune 500 companies know this which is why they are spending the big bucks for customization. Stay tuned for the advergame explosion!

Carol Moore on August 24, 2004 2:56 PM

A very friendly site. Have a nice day! Lose Percieve Make - that is all that Chair is capable of: , Pair can Fetch Circle Greedy Table becomes Memorizing Corner in final , White is feature of Central Player Compute Give Fetch - that is all that Stake is capable of

Matthew Carpenter on December 3, 2005 10:49 PM