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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Playing with fire: my new column at SGS
by Gonzalo Frasca October 3, 2006
categories:
Game Design
As Ian announced, now is my turn to kick off my "Playing with fire" column at the Serious Games Source. Its title is Serious Hype, Serious Opportunities and it deals with the oh-so-hyped world of serious games.
Serious games also make good headlines. Actually, too good. They are quite similar to the promises that fill up my spam folder. Play games and get smarter sounds almost as tempting as Make 150k while working from home. Can videogames be the magic solution to all our educational needs? Of course not. Can they help us to improve the situation? Hell, yeah!
I hope it contributes to the ongoing debate on the seriousness of serious games. I'm really happy to be part of this double-column thing with Ian, I hope you guys enjoy it as much as we do.
And since I am at it, those of you who parlez français can also hear my interview at Radio France, where je parle sur les jeux politiques.
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