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.
You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)
My new column: The Missing Social Rituals of Exergames
by Ian Bogost February 3, 2007
categories:
Health & Medicine Games
Serious Games Source has published my latest Persuasive Games column, this one about social practice in exergames. In the column, I argue that exergames are currently limited by the lack social rituals of physical activity like sports. A brief excerpt:
The whole experience exposes the inhumanity of exergames of this type: videogame-induced movements are no more inherently inspiring than exercise bikes or stairmasters. Wario Ware’s micro-games are cute and quirky, but their novelty quickly fades, and Wario’s characteristic end-of-session cackle becomes the gracious alarm of a new kind of countdown timer.
You can read the whole thing over at Serious Games Source.
blog
books
games
writing
photography
teaching
speaking
Loading...
follow me on Twitter
recent stuff
Writing and Blog Posts
Information is Beautiful
The Art History of Games
The Art History of Games
Objects & Things
Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Comments
Shane on Information is Beautiful
Jeff Medcalf on Information is Beautiful
Shane on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Ian Bogost on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Shane on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Information is Beautiful
The Art History of Games
The Art History of Games
Objects & Things
Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Comments
Shane on Information is Beautiful
Jeff Medcalf on Information is Beautiful
Shane on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Ian Bogost on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Shane on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
favorites