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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My new column: Why We Need More Boring Games
by Ian Bogost May 22, 2007
categories: Game Design , General

Gamasutra has published my latest Persuasive Games column, Why We Need More Boring Games. From the column:

But few developers set their sights on a lower-hanging, if more bitter fruit: games that would demystify the medium, to use [Marc] Ecko’s words. Literature and film are indeed media in the service of art, but they are also media in the service of much more mundane goals.

Read the whole thing over at Gamasutra.

Comments (1)

That was a great article. I agree very much with the idea of using a medium for all possible, including the very bland, forms of expression. That said, I think utilitarian computer programs and web sites fulfill the needs of a "boring" interactive experience. I wrote more on this in response to your article over at my blog http://thenewmagic.blogspot.com. I'd be interested to hear what you think about the formal differences between video games and other new media, and why games, in particular, ought to "set their sights on a lower-hanging, if more bitter fruit," as you put it.