Gimmickry, or How Exergaming Went Mainstream
August 25, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

I've been thinking about exercise games lately, primarily due to an onslaught of new games, devices, and initiatives. For example, we've got Footgaming, a sort of promotional blog for a student fitness program called Generation Fit. The group hopes to support casual and educational play with a peripheral called FootPOWR. Judy Shasek, the program's proponent, argues that physical activity contributes to both fitness and academic success. Then there's Wii Sqweeze (pictured at top right), from Interaction Laboratories. The device promises isometric upper body exercise via shoulder abduction and adduction, wrought via a two-handled pumping interface with attached wiimote. There's reason ...

Attention Hog
August 13, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

San Francisco artist Chris Basmajian has created Attention Hog, A casual game about attention-driven social network culture. In Basmajian's words, "the game reflects some of the social and psychological trends present in social-networking communities. Eating its own hog feed, the game also offers extensive (almost 20) automated social network integrations, from Bebo to Xanga. In the game, the player pilots a cute pig toward people wandering around. If they face you for enough time, a heart fills up and turns gold, earning points. Each level has a target, and failing to meet it ends the game. Power-ups that improve your ...

HGTV Interior Design Game
June 30, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

HGTV has a reality show called Design Star, which is apparently like American Idol or The Apprentice but for interior design. They have an advergame up that's actually, miraculously vaguely related to the theme of the show. It's called Design Star Shuffle, and it's basically a reskinned version of the puzzle boardgame Rush Hour. Instead of moving cars, the player moves sofas and other furniture. It's not a bad idea, and a reskin of a proven design is probably better than a crappy new one, as is so often the case with film and tv advergames. But it's disappointing that ...

Simulating disease is nothing to sneeze at
June 23, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Liz Losh mentions and critiques a new Facebook app called Patient Zero, from VisualDXHealth. It takes the concept of viral spread literally rather than figuratively, allowing users to create a new virus, "power it up," and spread it to friends. Seems like a decent idea at first blush. The problem, as Liz points out, is the implementation. Viruses are created, and immunities are granted, by answering quiz questions, no doubt a hat-tip to some idiot stakeholder at the sponsor who wanted to assure "knowledge transfer" by bludgeoning people with textbook learning. Despite the whole ideavirus metaphor, representations of actual infective ...

Boostin' Nuts
June 12, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Jeep has a new advergame on Facebook to promote the new edition of their Liberty small SUV. In the game, called Boostin' Nuts, the player controls a flying squirrel who needs to land on acorns to stay in the air. Some give more points than others, and others take points away or knock your squirrel off course. If you don't use Facebook or don't want to log in to the application, you can play the game on Jeep's games website as well. As a web-based casual game, Boostin' Nuts is pretty good, although the design clearly stolen straight from one ...

Pedometer Pets
June 2, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

Here's an interesting example of a mobile exergame. Arukotch is a tamagotchi-like virtual pet embedded in a pedometer. The "pet" is a "shy girl waiting for a proposal from a cute boy." The more steps you take, the more "healthy and beautiful" she becomes. Items like cell phones and gifts also reveal themselves as you walk more. These items can aid in obtaining, you know, a cute boy. Arukotch has been around for a few years, although I can't tell if it's still being produced. The concept is sort of insipid, but the coupling of movement to gameplay is more ...

We pwn free games
March 26, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

PC World's new list of "101 Fantastic Freebies" is out in the forthcoming May 2008 print issue, also available online now. There's a category for games, and I'm happy to say that two of the nine on the list are Persuasive Games titles. One is our send-up of the TSA, Airport Security, and the other our satire of Kinko's, Disaffected. Woo! ...

My new column: The Holly and the Ivy
December 23, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

With Christmas almost here, this month's edition of my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra is about holiday-themed games. It's not an attempt to write a complete history by any means, but I mention a few kinds of such games, although mostly I wonder why our medium doesn't follow packaged goods, film and others in taking advantage of the season. In addition to all the holiday-themed packaged goods and decorations, all the various media industries take advantage of the holidays. Film studios produce well-timed, if sometimes shoddy, holiday dramas and romantic comedies. Music labels release holiday albums and singles. Book publishers ...

Spurn-A-Bear
December 20, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

You know Build-A-Bear? It's a retail store that allows kids to construct custom plush toys by choosing different styles, parts, and accessories. I recently learned via Leigh Alexander that the company is about to release a virtual world based on their gimmick. As much as I loathe these kiddie virtual worlds, the concept behind Build-A-Bearville does make some sense. When you purchase a real bear, you can get an avatar version as well and play minigames with it in the virtual world. Sure it makes me want to claw my eyes out of my head and feed them to the ...

Library Games at CMU
October 14, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

The Carnegie Mellon University Libraries have a couple of library games (yes, i said library games) in their new Library Arcade . The first game is Within Range, and it's an LC call number shelving game. Seriously. The second game is I'll Get It, and it's more complex. The player takes the role of a librarian servicing visitor requests. You have to decide what kind of resources are appropriate for each one. It's basically Library Dash. Within Range is cute but a bit forgettable (LC shelving isn't exactly rocket science, and there's not a lot of game wrapped around the ...

My new column: Casual as in Sex, not casual as in Friday
October 10, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one about new ways of understanding casual games. I propose an alternative to the tired "easy to learn hard to master" design value for casual games: One reason for this is a lack of imagination about what casual might mean. I propose an alternative: casual games that players use and toss aside -- one play stands, serendipitous encounters never to be seen again. Read the whole article over at Gamasutra. ...

Imagine Game History
October 4, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Brian, Alice, and Leigh all wrote something snarky about Ubisoft's newly announced Imagine line for girls. They are right to point out the explicit, troubling, simplistic gender roles the games endorse. But none of them manage to locate these games historically. Videogame critics, bloggers, players, and journalists have a very short memory, and little sense for history. This makes it hard to remember that Babyz was first released in 1999, created by PF Magic, the same company that did the original pet sims Dogz and Catz (collectively Petz) in 1995. Ubisoft bought the rights to the Petz line in the ...

My new column: How I learned to stop worrying about gamers
August 2, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one a response to Justin Peters' Slate article on educational games (previously discussed here on WCG), and a meditation on who players are, at least the ones I'm interested in. I still have nothing but respect for my more traditional industry colleagues, but I’ve stopped worrying about impressing the games industry and its pundits. Or at least, I’ve stopped worrying about impressing them first. Read the whole article over on Gamasutra. ...

Skype's new casual games portal
May 29, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Internet telephony service and Ebay company Skype has announced their intentions to create a casual games service for the product. When AOL announced games for AIM, I initially thought the service might provide interesting opportunities to reach a more general audience. But I'm not sure that that promise really came to fruition. MSN followed suit, and still the opportunities are really no different than the traditional casual games portal. Do you think games on Skype will be any different? ...

Break the News, Don't Read It
May 2, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

MSNBC wrote to let us know about Newsbreaker, their Arkanoid clone + news. They call it an "educational online game" -- it takes RSS feeds and drops them into the background, behind the bricks. When you hit certain blocks, the headlines drop down, much like Arkanoid power-ups. The game has high production value and it's actually a decent Arkanoid clone, if a bit slow to start. But I can't help but think that Newsbreaker is poorly conceived. If it is a "newsgame," it's certainly one of a different kind than the ones Gonzalo and I have been advocating for. And ...

Wristwatch Gaming
April 23, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

I have the Fossil Atari Asteroids watch. I don't wear a watch very often (usually I just check the time on my mobile phone), but I can't help but think one reason I don't wear it more is that the Asteroids feature is non-functional; to quote the product page, "Actual Asteroids game is not playable, but the dial animates and shows the game being played on a black background." Slightly more sophisticated than an Atari-branded watch, but not much more. Enter high-end Swiss watchmaker Girard-Perregaux, who recently announced the new 1945 Jackpot Tourbillon. This is a completely mechanical watch with ...

How to Extract Mii's on your Mac
March 27, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

My Mii obsession continues. Here's how to extract Mii's and use them on your computer. This a Mac OS X only thing, sorry PC goons. Go get the Mii Transfer application. Make sure Bluetooth is on before you run it. Load Mii's onto your Wiimote from your console Run Mii Transfer and save them to files Open the .mii binary files up in Mii Editor (use File/Load). Click File again in Mii Editor and extract a Jpeg. The resulting images are NOT perfect (for example, the hair falls behind rather than in front of the eyebrows,a and the small beard ...

The Tyranny of Casual Games
March 13, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Hollywood Reporter columnist Paul Hyman offers a welcome view on casual games, arguing that imitations and clones are diluting the market. The article primarily considers the question of developer/publisher rights and IP -- particularly whether gameplay is subject to copyright protection. Hyman also points out that the portals are starting to make more money from ads than game sales, so the games themselves matter less and less. One factor the article does not consider is the effect of all this cloning on the future attention of casual game players. Casual games were supposed to promise small budgets, accessible digital distribution, ...

Finally, a good farting game
February 28, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

I know you've all been waiting for it. Check out What a Fart, a farting game with a convincing core mechanic. You play the role of a gassy chap waiting at a bus stop. Gas builds up in your gut that must needs be released, but take care not to offend social convention and disturb another fellow at the bus stop. Wait until cars pass by and take the opportunity to mask the sound of your flatus with their engine noise. Don't build up too much gas or you'll explode. Longer farts mean more points! The game itself is in ...

Apple iPhone: Another Closed Platform
January 12, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

If you saw Apple's new iPhone earlier this week, you might have thought, "Wow, it runs OS X and has a 3.5" multitouch screen and an accelerometer... it would be cool to make games for it." Well, too bad for you. Just as Apple previously closed access to games on the new iPod Video, so it continues with the iPhone. From The Joel on Software Discussion Group: According to MacInTouch, Apple representatives called iPhone a "closed platform", and indicated that there would be no public SDK, though interested parties could call Apple developer relations for more information. I take this ...

Why Vista Sucks for Casual Games
January 10, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

A few weeks ago there was a running thread on the IGDA casual games listserv about problems installing and running games in Windows Vista. Alex St. John, of DirectX and WildTangent fame, has just written an opinion for Gamasutra summarizing the issues, Vista Casts a Pall on PC Gaming. The article is nice, but it's missing some of the detail and ire of the original list posts; I'd recommend reading those too (Dec list archive; read the ones that start "Slow death", one key post) The majority of the issues have to do with installation security warnings, non-ESRB rated games ...

Vote for the Best Casual Games of 2006
January 1, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Over at the excellent Jay Is Games, they're running a "best of" poll for 2006. I'm not sure how much longer it runs (they say they'll start posting results today), but our readers may want to vote for the Simulation category in particular. Nominees there include Molleindustria's The McDonald's Game, my own Airport Security newsgame, and GlobalKids/gameLab's Ayiti: The Cost of Life, all of which we've discussed this year on WCG. It's actually sort of interesting that Airport Security got categorized in Simulation. It simulates, to be sure, but shares more in common with action or arcade games from a ...

Is there a future for casual games on digital cameras?
December 30, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Our regular readers will know that I am both interested in and disappointed with current opportunities for independent handheld games -- cf. my previous opinions on mobile phones and iPods. My interest in devices like these revolves around two factors: general mass-market use and openness of platform. Thus far, everything has problems. The GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS invite the level of abstraction I prefer as a designer and player, but they are both closed platforms and also game specific. The iPod is tremendously widespread but equally closed. Mobile phones are open(ish) but terrible to distribute for. In my occasional ...

Raph Koster announces Areae
December 16, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Today Raph finally announced his new company, Areae. Click over to Raph's blog or the corporate site for links to a bunch of news stories. Raph isn't saying much yet, but... this is definitely something our readers will want to keep an eye on... ...

Playce: games as navigation
December 10, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Steffen Walz has an interesting little project up, which he calls playce. It's essentially a portfolio site, but you can choose to navigate it by playing one of four small arcade style games. I think I enjoyed shooting down the paratroopers to navigate most :). When we talk about non-entertainment games, or serious games or whatever, usually we think about content innovation, but Steffen's effort here suggests that there are plenty of other, less explored opportunities for games as a part of everyday experiences. ...

Sonic for School Lunches
December 1, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Snack Dash is a Sonic-style side-scroller distributed by the UK's School Food Trust. "Speed is the key as you race to collect as many healthy eating points as you can while avoiding the bad guys and keeping up enough energy to get through the course." Normally I'm a bit cynical about these sorts of games, because they tend to decouple the subject represented from the gameplay. But there are a few nice touches here, most notably the fact that junk food slows you down, which is abstractly accurate and also important in a Sonic-style game. Still, it's a pretty low-level ...

The parvenu life of Casual Games
November 27, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

I'm not sure if this AP article on casual games, Casual computer games go upscale, is encouraging or depressing, but I'm leaning toward the latter. ...

Call for Games: Computers and Writing Online 2007
November 27, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Computers and Writing Online 2007 has announced a call for games in which they seem to welcome small scale, online political games and newsgames of the sort that interest many readers of this site. The theme of the conference is "Technoculture" and games should address that theme in some way. Full call after the jump. ...

Political Games for Election Day
November 7, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

We've probably been remiss in not pointing readers to Jay Bibby's excellent site on casual games, CasualGameplay (aka JayIsGames). In observance of Election Day here in the States, the crew over there has been reviewing political games, for the first time I think. Among those reviewed are Newsgaming.com's September 12th, Persuasive Games' Oil God and Airport Security, and the Global Kids/Unicef/gameLab game Cost of Life. I've weighed in in some of the comments over there, and I invite our readers to do so too. P.S. - Americans go vote! ...

iTunes Walled Garden Game Store opens
September 13, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Back in January I mused about the relative inaccessibility of independent development for the handheld market. Today Apple released new iPods along with iTunes 7, which includes the new iTunes Game Store. Unfortunately, developing for iPod remains still a fantasy. Here's why. ...

Branded Sudoku: Snakes, DaVinci
September 3, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

My grasp of the world lessens daily. Today it's curious branded sudoku puzzle books Snakes on a Sudoku and The Sudoku Code. Maybe "branded" isn't the best characterization here -- it's more like sudoku books skinned with pop culture icons. I haven't seen The Sudoku Code, which seems to be the more interesting one, but I did flip through Snakes on a Sudoku today. I can assure you that there are snakes on every single puzzle. Or around them, at least. ...

Free Ad-supported Mobile Games
August 21, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

One of the ongoing complaints about in-game advertising is the fact that, unlike television, radio, and print, game adverts are not removing or even subsidizing the cost of videogames for consumers. In fact, console videogame prices are rising, even as advertising messages in games are increasing. Who wants to pay more to be marketed upon? Well, here's an interesting example of the opposite strategy: free games supported by advertising. ...

Surgically remove the Bush Administration to win Ice Cream
August 12, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's fame)-created TrueMajorityAction has created a cute little web-based political game. Operation: Cure the Cabinet is a reskinning and digitization of the popular board game Operation. Instead of removing body parts, the player extracts key components of the Bush administration, which have been cleverly mapped onto Bush's own anatomy (brain: Karl Rove; voicebox: Scott McClellan). The game features very high production value, and the core Operation mechanic is nicely implemented. As a bonus, the fastest player of the week will be entered into a drawing to win a 1/2 year worth of ice cream (up ...

Viacom/MTV buys Atom Entertainment
August 10, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Viacom's MTV Networks division has bought Atom Entertainment, who run Shockwave.com, AddictingGames.com (which we've linked to recently for a few newsgames), AtomFilms.com, and AddictingClips.com. The acquisition price was a respectable $200 million. This is an interesting acquisition for a few reasons. The rest of the world will probably note that the broadcast/media conglomerate ownership of a short films portal like Atom Films and the YouTubesque AddictingClips will offer new opportunities for moving niche and grassroots/fandom films up and down the broadcast chain. But most important to note for our audience is this fact: the acquisition of two casual games portals ...

Roll your own Zidane Headbutt Game
July 20, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

After the World Cup Final, we pointed readers to the Zidane Headbutt game. Since then, Atom Entertainment's Addicting Games site has published a revised version, with more Materazzi's and a scoring system. Another nice feature of the new version is that you are awarded more points for a chestbutt than a headbutt, an accurate interpretation of the event itself. More interestingly, Addicting Games is offering the source code for the Zidane game for modification. They are encouraging modders to upload their new creations to Addicting Games, which is a good way to save bandwidth costs and get more traffic back ...

A paean to Dogz, at whose heels Nintendogs nips
July 10, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Author's note: Nintendo has created a community at Gather.com to facilitate discussion of their "Touch Generations" series of games. I have cross-posted this article there, and readers may want to view the other articles in that series. Nintendogs, as many of you already know, is a pet puppy simulator. You the player adopt a pet (actually you purchase a pure-bred one), then train and tend to it. As some of you may also know, Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to create Nintendogs after he got a pet puppy of his own. And as many of you also know, Nintendogs sits comfortably ...

Drive Like a Kennedy
May 16, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Frequent WCG ire target Blockdot has just released Drive Like A Kennedy. The game challenges players to avoid guardrails and traffic to reach the Capitol while under the influence. From the press release: A new online political parody pokes fun at Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who took a mysterious spin around the block and ended up totaling his car last week. The “Drive Like a Kennedy” game features father and son, Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Patrick Kennedy, as they veer and steer through the streets of D.C., picking up Lobbyist Coins for points. Nabbing pharmaceutical pills or pink elephants along ...

How to make a Casual Game in 1 easy step
April 10, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

At the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Festival earlier this year, James Gwertzman gave an award on behalf of sponsor PopCap Games. In his introduction, he gave the following set of credentials for a casual game: "A casual game should be fun, easy to play, and relatively polished." Alternative definitions abound. Some argue that it has to do with the low time required per game session. Others say it has to do with bright graphics, non-violent gameplay, and a very broad appeal. Still others invoke the now-tired maxim that a casual game should be easy to learn, hard to master. And that's ...

Shockwave.com redesign with in-game ads
April 3, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

I got word from Atom Entertainment that they have just launched, or are about to launch a redesign of Shockwave.com, which they hope will appeal to a "broader range of online gamers." Apparently they're focusing on three areas now, ad-supported online games, the usual downloadable games, and multiplayer games. They also say they're adding a new subscription option called Shockwave.com Unlimited and supporting online games enabled for in-game ads. I've asked Atom for more information on the last item in particular, but I'm still waiting for more detailed news. I'm not sure if it means they are using one of ...

Persuasive Games launches Disaffected!
January 17, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

I'm happy to announce that my studio Persuasive Games has released Disaffected!, a videogame parody of the Kinko's copy store. The game puts the player in the role employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko’s store. It gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise -- is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction? Unseen but serious labor issues? Disaffected is the first in (what I hope will become) a series of ...

PopCap for healthy minds
January 12, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

This just in on the Games for Health front. Casual games heavy PopCap has funded research with G4H on the "Cognitive Health Benefits of Digital Gameplay." Here's the official word from the press release: PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, and The Games for Health Project announced a unique effort to gather, evaluate, and share research on the use of digital games and cognitive health. The jointly funded effort will result in a publicly available knowledge-base summarizing both the research and market development activities associated with the possible use of digital games for maintaining healthy minds. ...

The Trouble with Handhelds for Indies
January 7, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Gonzalo and I love handhelds. Especially the Nintendo DS and the GameBoy Advance, but the PSP has grown on me too despite its lack of interesting software. I've always been fond of handhelds, from the Mattel eletronic games to Game and Watch. I remember lusting over the NEC Turbo Express, the first 16-bit portable handheld which, ingeniously, played the same game carts as the underappreciated NEC Turbo-Grafx 16 console. Handheld tech "lags" behind consoles by a generation or two, for those people who are concerned about such things. For the rest of us, handhelds offer a welcome respite from the ...

Agency.com Snowball Fight
December 23, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

Another yuletide-themed posting before shuttering our virtual doors for the holiday this weekend. Interactive agency Agency.com has created the Agency.com Snowball Fight, a cute little game in which you throw snowballs at people in a variety of Agency.com-officed locations. The best score come January wins an iPod, but I don't think it's the kind of game most people will feel compelled to play long enough to compete. I remember back in the 90s, most i-agencies created little Christmas greetings like this as promotions of their work. It's basically a meta-advergame. After the bubble burst, this became far less common; it ...

Grow Ornament
December 19, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

A little Christmas distraction for this week. Those of you who have been puzzled by Grow, Grow RPG, and Grow Cube may like the special edition Happy X-mas miniGrow just released by Eyezmaze. It has two fewer objects than the full versions of Grow, but don't let that make you think it's that much easier. So far, I've managed to max all objects save one. Grist for those Christmastime nutmeg mills... ...

Ragdoll Bush
December 3, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

Not really a game, but certainly a fun little toy for you to enjoy as the US approaches its third year in Iraq: Ragdoll Bush. ...

Persuasive Games Announces the Release of the Mobile Game 'Airport Insecurity'
November 8, 2005 - by Ian Bogost

I'm very happy to announce that my studio Persuasive Games has just released Airport Insecurity, a mobile game about inconvenience and the tradeoffs between security and rights in American airports. The game is available for purchase for the low, low price of $3.99, and it's currently compatible with Nokia Series 60 handsets (that includes the popular 6600, 6620, 6630, 7610, and even the ill-fated N-Gage, among many others if I'm not mistaken). Those of you with Series 40 or non-Nokia handsets: encourage your friends to buy a copy so we can afford to port the game to your device. Or ...