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.
Every year at the Politics Online Conference, the Golden Dot awards are given for "best achievement in online politics." This year there is a category for Best Online Game. The two finalists are: Bush Move In Day and Dress Like Palin, both by the California Nurses Association. I'd not seen these before.
Neither of them are games; they're both little drag and drop toys that give more detailed information about what could have been done with Palin's clothing budget, or about the reside of Bush policy after his departure from office. It's disappointing to see that this is the cream of the crop among online political games this year.
The awards are decided partly by a panel of judges and partly by popular vote; you can cast your vote now.
In related news, Ben Sawyer, Chris Swain, Heather Chaplin and I will be doing a panel at the Game Developers Conference in two weeks called Where were all the election games?. We hope to tackle this issue more deeply, although I doubt our outlook will be optimistic.
Barred Ronald
Speculative Realism Notes
Alien Phenomenology
Pretty Girls for Nixon
Atari Hacks and Demakes
Comments
increpare on Barred Ronald
Ian Bogost on If You Follow Me...
mist. on Atari Hacks and Demakes
Ian Bogost on Atari Hacks and Demakes
Raph on If You Follow Me...