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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Persuasive Games: The Reverence of Resistance
by Ian Bogost September 11, 2007

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one on the Manchester Cathedral controversy in popular PS3 shooter Resistance: Fall of Man. I take a fairly different position than

A cynic, unbeliever, or Internet troll might point out the irony of the church pointing the finger, given the millennia-old history of church-sponsored violence. A gamer might rely on the title's status as fantasy fiction to nullify the validity of affront. Such impressions are merely instrumental attempts to foil the church’s parry rather than reasoned attempts to justify the expressive ends served by depicting the cathedral in the game. And despite its creators’ silence on the matter, the game does indeed have one.

You can read the whole thing over at Gamasutra.