Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - One-Joystick Bandit

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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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One-Joystick Bandit

by Ian Bogost September 13, 2004

categories: Social Games

Just in case there's anyone left out there who thinks games can't motivate real-world action, check this out. Atari has just announced that it plans to release casino slot machines based on their vintage arcade games. Appropriately, the first will be Pong. I hope they're all quarter slots.

It's worth pointing out that there is a long history of collaboration between videogame and casino game companies. Casino game company Bally created Midway in the mid-1970s, which later released some of our favorite arcade games here in the states (like Pac Man). Pinball company Williams and Midway merged in the late 80s.

(thanks to Clive for this one)

Comments (3)

What's even more appropriate is that Al Alcorn, Atari employee number 1 and the engineer who created Pong, was a founder of casino gaming company Silicon Gaming, in 1994, and served as their CTO for several years.

nick on September 13, 2004 5:41 AM

Thanks for pointing this out Nick. This is all part of the shift in the casino gaming biz (and in the hospitality biz in general, on and off the caino floor) from gambling to entertainment. Many casino patrons know they're very likely not going to win big, making the experience much more like an arcade, where you pay a fixed price for a guaranteed experience, no matter your outcome, than a casino, where one enacts a repetitive, often banal action with the primary hope of a payout.

Ian Bogost on September 13, 2004 5:50 AM

Nick beat me to that comment. I would say it's ironic, but first I'll ask Al if he is involved. If he is, that would remove the irony. :-) I'll send the link to Al and see what he says.

Henry Lowood on September 16, 2004 11:52 PM