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.
Search Water Cooler Games:  
You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)
X Box Warriors
by Ian Bogost August 23, 2004
categories: Political Games

The New York Times Magazine just published a long article by WCG friend and frequent game journalist Clive Thompson. The article, The Making of an X Box Warrior, is about the military training games developed at the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), in my old backyard in SoCal, and especially their work on Full Spectrum Warrior and a modified Iraq version of There.

My favorite snippet:

A lieutenant wondered whether the game was too exciting for its own good. Boredom is a key part of training, he said, since part of the challenge of gun battles is that they often come out of nowhere after hours of tedium. All agreed that There could better simulate exhaustion: a virtual soldier who stands around in Iraqi heat ought to become fatigued, they argued, unless he is drinking lots of virtual water.