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.
Last month I gave a presentation on "Playing the News" at the American Press Institute (filling in for Gonzalo, who couldn't make it, and for whom I provided the best bizarro-Gonzalo I could muster). Among the attendees was Gil Asakawa, executive producer for DenverPost.com. Game journalist and game research circle-runner Dave Thomas (aka buzzcut) works with Gil. Dave let me know that the Denver Post has just published a political game on their website, Campaign Trail 2004, created by Gary Rosenzweig.
This is an important example, because the newspaper itself published this game, inside the context of an online article. The Christian Science Monitor has a marketing and distribution deal with WCG reader and election game veteran Randy Chase's Power Politics III, but the Denver Post game is actually contextualized as a news article, which I think is a precedent (correct me if I'm wrong?).
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