Superstruct
September 24, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Game designer (and friend and collaborator) Jane McGonigal's new game Superstruct, created at the Institute for the Future, is about to go online. IFTF is casting Superstruct as a "massively multiplayer forecasting game," and uses the following rhetoric to set up the scenario: What does the world of 2019 look like? Find out now. The full report from the Global Extinction Awareness System is LIVE -- and you can read it here for the first time anywhere. Find out exactly why the human species may face extinction by the year 2042 -- and what we can do about it. The ...

Packaging Man: Skip the Wrapper and the Game
August 21, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Consider a new game Packaging Man, which its creators bill as follows: an environmentally themed video game ... to raise awareness about the destructive impact fast food paper packaging has on Southern forests. The game which is a new take on the classic video game, Pac-Man, follows the exploits of the hero Packaging Man as he works to save forest creatures by collecting excessive packaging and recycling it, all the while avoiding the "evil" fast food corporate executives. If you play the game, you'll see that it is a straightforward Pac-Man clone, with a few colors changed. An animated introduction ...

Suffering under Global Poverty
August 6, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Ack. Check out the Race Against Global Poverty Game. According to its sponsors, the game is supposed give "children living in the UK the chance to learn about the developing world in a fun and stimulating way." I wonder what went wrong here. It's a graphically lush simulated board game with cute, carefully crafted horse-type creatures as tokens, but the game is just trivia, and there's no sound, and its neither fun nor stimulating, but rather insipid. ...

Lockdown: A School Shooting Game
July 17, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Lockdown is a "serious game for incident responses to school shootings." The game was created at the GamePipe Lab at USC Engineering with sponsorship from Sandia National Laboratories. The game looks very polished, but I couldn't help but notice that Lockdown's apparent approach to "incident response" is: "do whatever you'd do in a First-Person Shooter. Oh yeah, and tell people to exit calmly." Watch the video on the page linked above to witness the myriad firearms available to the player's SWAT character, as well as his alarmingly comical, Counter-Strike style final firefight with the perpetrator. (via Liz Losh) ...

Imagine Cup Winners - Games for a Sustainable Environment
July 8, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

I've been in Paris for the last week judging the game development category of the Imagine Cup. I'll write a full account later, but I wanted to report that the winners were announced today. The games needed to appeal to the competition theme of "imagine how technology can enable a sustainable environment." The first place winner was City Rain, a fantastic game from Brazil that's a sort of blend of SimCity and Tetris, in which the player must complete environmentally themed challenges. The game design, visual design, and sound design are all fantastic yet simple, and the game tightly couples ...

Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 Finals
June 26, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Microsoft holds an annual student competition called Imagine Cup, with its theme chosen from the UN Millennium Goals. The 2008 theme is the environment, and for the first time there is a special game development, with games created in XNA Game Studio Express. I'll be in Paris next week acting as a judge for the 2008 finals. There are six finalist teams, although I'm not yet sure what their games are about. The top three US finalists appear after the jump. ...

The UN Shoots an Air Ball
April 14, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

The UN Foundation's Nothing But Nets campaign provides low-cost bed nets in an effort to reduce malaria-related deaths in Africa in particular. As a part of the campaign, they have created a game, Deliver the Net. If you play the game and sign up at the end, the organization will deliver a net to Africa on their behalf. The sentiment is a respectable one. But the game misses the net entirely. The player drives a motorbike in a desolate African setting, stopping at local huts to deliver nets and jumping over occasional obstacles. At the end of the game, the ...

Games for Change 2007 (day 2)
June 12, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Continuing coverage of Games for Change Festival 2007. Yesterday's coverage is here Funding Perspectives Connie Yowell, MacArthur Foundation Diana Rhoten, NSF Allyson Knox, Microsoft Lucy Bernholz (moderator) Games, Civic Education, and Engagement Joseph Kahne, Mills College Doug Thomas, Tiltfactor Angela [did not get her last name, sorry], Hunter College/Tiltfactor Ben Stokes (moderator) Gaming 21st Century Play - Are Games Rewiring Our Culture and Vice Versa? Frank Lantz, Area Code Karen Sideman, Parsons Strategies for an Ecology of Change Greg Costikyan, Manifesto Games Katie Salen, gameLab institute of Play Ken Wark, New School, Eugene Lang College Carl Goodman (moderator) ...

Games for Change 2007 (day 1)
June 11, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

I'm in New York at Games for Change Festival 2007. I'm going to attempt to liveblog some of it here. Keynote Conversation with Chris Melissinos and Alan Gershenfeld Alan Gershenfeld, CEO of Netomat and former head of Activision Chris Melissinos, Chief Gaming Officer, Sun Microsystems Virtual Activism: Exploring Nonprofits in Second Life Susan Tenby, Tech Soup Evonne Heyning, Amoration Jeska Dzwigalski, Linden Lab Beth Kanter, moderator Market Sector Impact Alex Chisholm, ICE3, MIT, NBC Eric Brown, ImpactGames Stephen Friedman, mtvU Heather Chaplin (moderator) Serious Games & Games for Change: Then and Now Ben Sawyer (out of power for a while, ...

ID the Creep
April 25, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Liz Losh recently introduced me to ID The Creep, a game that purports to help young girls practice identifying pedophiles online. The game is sponsored by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and The Ad Council. As Liz argues, the player really isn't forced to make any hard decisions in the game; for example, there's no actual socialization or learning or interaction that takes place in the simulated chat space, so there's little motivation to treat the simulated interlocutors as . Liz found that the best strategy was just to identify everyone as a pedophile. Perhaps this is ...

Lumines + Inconvenient Truth = ?
April 18, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

According to Joystiq, Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi is reportedly working on an environmentalism "not-game" about environmental issues. A "not-game," in Mizuguchi's words: "It's not going to be a video game. The concept derives from video games, and its something which the gaming generation will appreciate." Hmm. We'll have to wait to hear more. ...

Advertising and Ecology: Planet Green Game
April 10, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Starbucks Coffee and Global Green USA have created Planet Green Game, a game about energy conservation and consumption. The game is set in a hypothetical town called Evergreen. The player chooses a character and transportation mode (foot, skateboard, bicycle, and three types of automobiles, each with different emissions). A variety of energy-related minigames are scattered throughout the town -- a MPG management driving game at the service station, a click-to-fix energy waste game at home, a build a city park game, a quiz at the school and city hall, and energy-efficient shopping memory game at the building supply store. ...

Stop Disasters Game
March 26, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

PlayerThree, creators of Food Force among other great titles, have a new game sponsored by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. The game is appropriately called Stop Disasters!, and it's a fantastic, simple, rich little strategy game. It's also a rich game, covering five disaster scenarios in great detail. The current scenarios include tsunami, wild fire, flood, hurricane, and earthquake; more may be added over time. In the game, the player must accomplish a series of infrastructure and safety subtasks as they prepare for a pending disaster. The implementation is solid, but I really wish I could have ...

Turn It All Off, an energy savings game
March 19, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

We've been a bit lax on covering games lately, and I'm planning to make up for that this week. For starters, here's the 1E Energy Awareness Campaign game about how you can save energy at work. Turn It All Off is a cute, well-produced game that does more than many similar games I have seen over the years. The principle is familiar enough: move a character around an office and find the objects that are using energy unnecessarily. But Turn It All Off actually ads some gameplay for once: there's a time limit, and there are both obstacles and simple ...

Water conservation game
January 3, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Check out Seattle Public Utilities' game about water conservation, Waterbusters. The visual design is nice but the gameplay could use some work... mostly you walk around the house and run into stuff. If you run into the right stuff, you get messages about how they could be used more efficiently. (via João Bordalo) ...

Right to Bore Arms (and new columns)
September 26, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Gonzalo and I each have a new column at Serious Games Source, the serious games arm of CMP's popular website Gamasutra. The first installment in my "Persuasive Games" column is up now, titled The Right To Bore Arms, about a new NRA-licenced game. ... By making firearms boring, slow, and arduous, NRA Gun Club might actually perform the rhetoric many people, including myself, have previously laughed-off as politicking and fabrication: the responsible handling of firearms. One might even go so far as to say that NRA Gun Club owes most of its rhetorical power to the commercial FPS. The very ...

Food Force 2 under production
September 11, 2006 - by Gonzalo Frasca

As you may know, Food Force is one of my favorite educational games -here's my previous coverage of the game. Well, details are sketchy at this point but word is out that there is another game about humanitarian aid currently being under production. It is aimed at an older audience than the original game and should not be necessarily seen as a sequel. Given the success of Food Force (they claim to have over 4 million players) it is not surprising that the WFP wants to keep working on this direction. I am really looking forward to playing this new ...

CDC villifies games, gamers
February 27, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

The Centers for Disease Control, which is located just a few clicks down the road from where I live, has a new ad campaign to encourage more active lifestyles. As printed in AdCritic, one of these ads depicts a bunch of overweight baseballers in stained uniforms idle and cookout on a sullied, overgrown infield. The image is intricately created to resemble an in-game render; for example, the stands are simple primitives with textures to make them appear to have seats. The ad (and presumably the campaign) tagline reads, "Give your thumbs a rest. Play for real." Click the thumbnail at ...

Funding for Student Political Games
October 22, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

I'm up in New York (way up, at 207th st.) at the Games for Change conference. A number of interesting things to report from the conference, which I'll do in the coming days. For now, I want to catch up on a couple of funding opportunities for students, both directly related to the topics that interest you, our stalwart readers. The first comes from MTVu, a new university-targeted MTV network that will be distributed exclusively online. Stephen Friedman, the general manager of MTVu, was here at Games for Change to explain the contest. He echoed come sentiments Gonzalo has said ...

Gaming for the People
September 7, 2005 - by Gonzalo Frasca

Think of DR as the Danish version of the BBC. The fact is that DR, along with Diginet and the IT University of Copenhagen (home of the Center for Computer Game Research) are hosting an event on Friday 23rd. The event is called Gaming for the People and wants to explore the possibilities of games and videogames for public service. I am very happy of being part of this event and I hope it can help to spread some good ideas on games and their impact on real life. ...

A lousy environmental advergame
June 23, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

I've been traveling and attending conferences for more than a week, including DiGRA 2005 and Supernova 2005. I gave a paper at DiGRA on political games and a workshop talk at Supernova on games and advertising. More on those later. For now, it's time for a lousy environmental advergame. French energy company Totalgaz has created an advergame to promote their GPL Premier fuel (site in French), which offers the dreamy promise of costing less, polluting less while still "preserving your driving pleasure." The game is also couched as a contest with several prizes, including year of free fuel, a vacation, ...

Speak at Serious Games Summit
May 25, 2005 - by Gonzalo Frasca

There is a new edition of the Serious Games Summit, coming to Washington D.C. on October 31st - November 1st, 2005. They have a Call for Abstracts, so if you have something serious and/or playful to say remember that the deadline is July 1st. ...

California Budget Challenge
May 9, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

A nonpartisan California organization called Next Ten has created the California Budget Challenge, a sort of interactive application that lets the user make highly structured decisions about the California budget. It's not really a game, but another example of an interactive representation of the tradeoffs of budgeting. (thanks to Bridget) ...

Ride an esuvee
April 18, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

The Attorney General and Consumer Protection Agencies have created Esuvee Challenge Course, a game that teaches players about key factors in SUV rollovers. The game has high production value and great complexity, and it's funny too: the "Esuvee" is a sort of wooly monster beast. You can also watch the TV spot. (thanks to Gamersnitch) ...

Police Profiling Game
April 11, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

NorthJersey.com reports that New Jersey State Police has commissioned a game to help state troopers understand and counteract racial profiling. It's a significant project, with $650,000 committed to WILL Interactive to develop the game. I'm not sure how much of a game it will be. The article tells the story of a live shoot for the game -- "They are filming a new computer video game on a side street of Hammonton..." In this case they are filming one possible outcome of an altercation between the fictional Officer Martinez and Paul, an African American man. The computer user will watch ...

Unicef Games for Kids
March 13, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

I just found out about Unicef Games, a small but growing game portal for the well-known advocacy and fundraising organization (thanks to Barry). It seems Unicef has created two games so far, World Heros and Halloween Coin Toss. Halloween Coin Toss is quite simple and really has nothing to do with advocacy at all. The player tries to toss coins into Unicef-marked boxes posted near local merchants. I suppose the game helps kids understand that such boxes exist so they can encourage their parents to give them a coin to drop in when they see one. World Heros is a ...

Destroy the Rainforest Game
February 3, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

Ok, it's really a game about preserving the rainforest, but it's pretty terrible. The Rainforest Foundation has commissioned Congo Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Bark. The game is a sidescrolling platformer. The player controls a monkey or a bear or something who has to avoid flying chainsaws. It's a great lesson in how not to make a game about activism; the core message is totally lost in distracting gameplay, rather than being the gameplay. Let me know if you get it to load... I did play it a few weeks back, it doesn't seem to be working right ...

More Game-based Charity
January 17, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

Two more examples of game-based charity. First, Xenopi Studios, who publishes and distributes games online, has announced the "Good Samaritan Games" Initiative. They plan to donate at least 10% of sales to charity, with a new charity or non-profit selected at some (yet undefined) interval. Second, Shooter Group, who also publishes and distributes games online, has announced the "Jett Reilly Program." Each time the company sells a million games, Shooter Group will donate $500,000 to construct "Shooter Playgrounds" at selected Children’s Hospitals, Ronald McDonald Houses, and public parks in New York City, Toronto, and Shanghai. I've never heard of these ...

Unicef Games
January 12, 2005 - by Gonzalo Frasca

More and more NGOs are using games. Now's the turn of Unicef. If you go to Unicefgames.org, you can play World Heroes (where you must go around the world, gathering donations) and Halloween Coin Toss (about tossing coins into Unicef charity boxes). The games are simple and cute, targeted to young players. They are similar to the Greenpeace games that we previously discussed here at WCG. I think that it is not a coincidence that many NGOs start by offering webgames addressed to children. I think it is a natural first step. I hope that eventually, such institutions will offer ...

Live from the Serious Games Summit DC
October 18, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

I am back from our London show opening (pictures soon) and here in DC for the Serious Games Summit. The conference has a very "official" feel, thanks to CMP, which is an important step. Oddly, no badge lanyards tho, only pins. Aren't lanyards the sign of officialness? Anyway, I'll do my best to cover the conference here, but it's multiple track and I'm doing a talk and a panel, so you'll get my view of the event rather than a general view. Update: coverage continues below as it happens, so to speak, from the back of the room. As usual, ...

Take Back Illinois: Economic Development
October 13, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

The fourth of four sub-games in the Take Back Illinois Game is now available. This sub-game covers the issue of economic development in downstate Illinois. ...

Take Back Illinois: Participation Now Available
October 6, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

The third of four sub-games in the Take Back Illinois Game is now available. This sub-game covers the issue of participation in local politics. You can also read my general description of the game, the first sub-game, about Medical Malpractice Reform, and the second sub-game, about Education Reform. Update: An official press release has also gone out for the game. ...

Announcing the launch of Take Back Illinois: Education
September 29, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

The second of four sub-games in the Take Back Illinois Game is now available. This sub-game covers the issue of improving public education in the state. You can also read my general description of the game and the first sub-game, about Medical Malpractice Reform. ...

Announcing the launch of Activism, the Public Policy Game
September 29, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

It's a busy month in the world of political games. I'm very happy to announce that my studio Persuasive Games has just released Activism, the Public Policy Game, sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The game asks you to create a virtual activism plan, promoting the DCCC's goal of getting 10,000 activists on the ground before the election. You can muster your activists to six different public policy topics in two categories, Domestic Affairs (Economy, Education, Corporate Policy) and Foreign Affairs (Security, the Military, Internationalism). How you allocate your activists changes the way the games play, and your performance ...

Persuasive Games releases "Take Back Illinois"
September 22, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

Take Back Illinois is an integrated four-part strategy game that challenges players to play through key issues facing Illinois voters in this year's state legislative election. The game was commissioned by Tom Cross and the Illinois House Republican Organization. The game was designed by me (Ian Bogost) and created by myself and a fantastic group of developers here at Persuasive Games. Each game deals with a different issue, and a new one will launch every week for the next four weeks. The issues are Medical Malpractice Reform, Education, Participation, and Economic Reform. The games are  interrelated, meaning your play in ...

Bureaucracy Games
September 1, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

Yesterday I spent three hours at the Georgia DMV getting my new drivers license. Three hours. That's one hour waiting in line outside the office, one hour waiting for my number to be called, and a third hour waiting for my license. Gimme that old time bureaucracy. I saw a lot of people turned away at the first desk inside (after having waited in line for an hour) because they didn't have the proper documentation. This got me thinking: is it possible that a game could more effectively communicate the rules and process of local political administration than a set ...

Man shall not live by bread alone: UN Game
August 19, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca

The United Nations will launch a game about world hunger. Here's a BBC article with some screenshots (I just hate when they mainly show cutscenes graphics rather than gameplay pics. I know they look better, but who cares?). There's a particular paragraph in the article that has scared me: "From the feedback sessions we had, the kids are remembering 75% of the information about what the WFP do." Again, haven't played the game (not out yet, but should be available as a free download, go UN!) but it is sad to see that, based on that quote, the game may ...

Will play for food
August 16, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca

Wired reports on The Fantastic Food Challenge, a videogame created to inform and educate Food stamps recipients on food-related habits. For those not familiar with this US system, it is basically a conspiracy from the richest nation on Earth to keep their poor fat and unhappy, instead of encouraging a Marxist revolution or some other structural change that would help those in real need. Now that I have lost your attention (and probably casted some serious doubt on my sanity, if any was left) let me go on. I got this link from Slashdot, where the usual Anonymous Coward wondered ...

Games in the City
July 30, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca

As much as I love all the Maxis games, I am a bit tired of hearing SimCity being quoted everytime somebody wants to make a point about urban planning. I mean, don't get me wrong, SimCity is one of the most relevant cultural products of the 20th century, right next Sargent Pepper and The Marx Brothers. This is why it is refreshing to see that students are taking other, alternative, gaming approaches to dealing with the bunch of concrete piles that makes what we call our hometowns. Wired reports on game design in New York City. (that's it. I am ...

The Truth is pretty bad
July 27, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

The American Legacy Foundation's ongoing anti-smoking campaign truth has released a game created by Templar Studios based on truth's "Crazy World" ad campaign. Here's what Templar's president Peter Mack had to say about the game: The game, which is aimed at a wide audience, ages 18-50, was created to show both smokers and non-smokers the dangers of cigarettes using humor and irony. Players score points by avoiding moving green puffs of radioactive smoke. If they get caught in the smoke, they mutate into an alien-like form. "The idea is to attract people to entertain themselves and keep the message within ...

Chris Crawford needs Java Developers
July 19, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

Well-known game designer and political game pioneer (Balance of Power) has announced that he has released the code for his 1990 enivronmental strategy game Balance of the Planet into the public domain. His goal is to get a version working on contemporary equipment. But the project needs Java developers. If you're interested, visit Chris's site to contact him. You should also have a look around if you haven't before. (via Serious Games) ...

Honoloko
June 25, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca

(thanks Chris Franklin) The World Health Organisation and the European Environment Agency have produced Honoloko, an enviromental computer game. Based on the BBC story description plus the image on their site, this seems to be a simulation game, with no right or wrong answers but just a playground where to see the impact of daily decisions. I can't wait to play it! (notice that I am well beyond the 10-14 age group that they are targetting. But, who cares!) ...

Gaming Techniques for Citizen Engagement
May 27, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

Chris Quigley, from the British organizational consultantcy Delib, has published Game On: A thought paper on the use of gaming techniques for citizen engagement and e-participation (120k Word Doc). Here's the abstract: In this paper Chris Quigley examines the applicability of gaming techniques in citizenship engagement and e-participation. The paper looks at three main areas: (1) The need for more effective citizenship engagement techniques; (2) The commonality between gaming and citizenship engagement; (3) Recommendations based on developing more effective democratic environments The paper also cites several example games that were new to me: Smart | Connect, a game designed to ...

International Debt Relief Game
May 22, 2004 - by Ian Bogost

Baltimore agency The Berndt Group created Bridging the Divide, a game meant to teach players about International debt relief, for an unnamed international institution. Here's the blurb from their website: We designed this interactive, educational Flash 5 game for an international institutional client to serve as a teaching tool for children from ages 8-13. "Bridging the Divide: Understanding International Debt Relief" is designed to educate and raise awareness about debt problems in other nations and how to build strategies to aid and assist those in need. The game asks players questions about debt relief. A number of random events and ...

AgoraXchange
April 30, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca

Tate Online is sponsoring an interesting project in political game design called AgoraXchange.net. It's motto is quite provocative: "Make the Game, Change the World". The basic idea behind it is to create an online community for discussing the design of a "massive multi-player global politics game challenging the violence and inequality of our present political system". ...

Shock and AWE