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.
Search Water Cooler Games:  
You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)
My new column: Casual as in Sex, not casual as in Friday
by Ian Bogost October 10, 2007
categories: Casual Games

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one about new ways of understanding casual games. I propose an alternative to the tired "easy to learn hard to master" design value for casual games:

One reason for this is a lack of imagination about what casual might mean. I propose an alternative: casual games that players use and toss aside -- one play stands, serendipitous encounters never to be seen again.

Read the whole article over at Gamasutra.