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.
As we cover the continuing controversy around the Slamdance festival's removal of Super Columbine Massacre RPG, we've heard from the festival itself, former winners, former finalists, current finalists, and a whole host of pundits and commentators. Yet to speak about the issue is a member of the Slamdance 2007 game festival jury.
We are therefore happy to host the following statement, from 2006 Slamdance Finalist and 2007 Slamdance Guerilla Game Competition judge Joe Bourrie:
Even more disturbing is the trend of games pulling themselves out of the festival. Some of these teams are students and other unknown developers trying to make a name for themselves, and now they are sacrificing that publicity to take a stand against Slamdances mistake. As a finalist last year, it would have been very difficult to pull Rumble Box out and lose the chance at getting noticed. I admire those that are willing to take a stand, but it hurts to see games that I love and pushed to get into the festival now leave due to one poor decision.
I encourage Mr. Baxter to own up to his mistake and reinstate Super Columbine Massacre RPG to the competition before the other half of the participants join the protest. Slamdance is meant to be a vessel for moving games forward. This controversy is only holding them back.
Joe Bourrie
Making Books
Academic Professional Job Opening
Slashdot Q&A
The Bulldog and the Pegasus
Speculative Realism Aggregator Update
Comments
NeMutluTürkümDiyene on Where in the World was Middle Earth?
Algogedaummam on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Christopher Schaberg on Making Books
Jose Zagal on Making Books
Ian Bogost on Making Books
The Curse of Cow Clicker
Beyond the Elbow-Patched Playground
Low-Earth Lamentation
Shit Crayons
Aerotropolis
Against Aca-Fandom
There are no Blown Calls in Football
We Think in Public
What is Object-Oriented Ontology?
The Metaphysics Videogame
Cascading Failure
Top Ten Reasons I Returned My Kindle
Carrying On Over Carry-Ons
Reading Online Sucks







