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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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The Rapture will be Advertised
by Ian Bogost June 9, 2006

Left Behind Games, creators of the forthcoming Left Behind: Eternal Forces, have announced a deal to include in-game advertising via the Double Fusion network. The game is based on the wildly popular book series of the same name, in which believers left behind after the rapture battle the army of the antichrist. I interviewed Left Behind Games and played the game at E3, and I've written it up for my forthcoming book but haven't yet done so for Water Cooler Games. I'll be doing that in the next week or so.

The game takes place in New York City, and according to the release "advertising secured by Double Fusion will be integrated on the billboards and video screens that actually exist in the Big Apple, in Times Square and other well known sections of the city." Says Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon,

We love the idea of the video screens in Times Square displaying current advertising, actually contributing to the realism that gamers expect to see in a pseudo-futuristic New York City.

I didn't realize that the advertising and media buying industries would still function after the apocalypse. I guess that settles the question of whether advertisers are going to heaven or hell.

Comments (3)

Wow, and it's the same old "advertising makes it more real" argument as well. I wonder what products will be advertised? I mean, in one sense, the "realness" of New York in the Left Behind sense has to be that it in some way deserves destruction for its moral depravity, so are the ads going to be targeted at the City's virtual inhabitants (i.e. sinners), or at its virtuous players?

Any word on if the ads will be normal or if they will be cleaned up in any way?

Right, exactly! As I understand it, these will be ads for normal "pre-rapture" real-world products. Otherwise, the advertisers wouldn't see the point advertising. One of the problems with the networks is that they preclude the kind of intersting customization you're suggesting. However, the game developers do have the ability to approve or reject ads, or to only accept those in a particular industry for example.

Ian Bogost on June 10, 2006 1:55 AM

More from Talk to Action on Left Behind Games' deal with Double Fusion to track gamers for profit."It's cutting-edge Israeli technology -- a piece of software inserted directly into Left Behind: Eternal Forces, software that cannot be blocked or removed -- and without your knowledge or permission, it tracks you. This in-game ad software records how often you play the video game, at what time of day and for how long, what game play areas you visit (like Times Square, Soho, Chinatown, or the United Nations Building), which video ads and product placements you view, where your computer is located geographically, and who you are demographically. It monitors your choices and behavior, collates data, and reports back in real-time to... whom? For what purposes? Do you know?" READ ON: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/6/21/23153/9497