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.
There's a nice article in the Baltimore Sun about Serious Games, specifically focusing on Maryland's many local game studios and their work on games for military training. Registration is required to read the article.
I am encouraged by and highly respectful of the idea of games for training and education. This is one of the major tenet's of the highly valuable Serious Games Project. However, I think we should be careful that we don't allow "seriousness" in games to be synonymous with training, and especially military training.
I've been writing about simulations lately, and I may talk about this in more detail at another time. For now, here's a simple question: Rhetorical speech is serious too. Is there still room for it in "serious games?"
An Atari Travels
Exergames, Microtalks, Nuovo Sessions, and More
Exhaust Objects
We Have Never Been Threshing
Shell Games
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