ian bogost
Features
9:00AM Brian Crecente | Like many younger brothers I had a contentious relationship with my older brother. We butted heads, fought, lied, accused each other of unimaginable atrocities and genuinely despised one another — while secretly caring deeply what the other thought. More »
When The Going Gets Tough…Let The Game Play Itself
9:00AM Brian Crecente | Like many younger brothers I had a contentious relationship with my older brother. We butted heads, fought, lied, accused each other of unimaginable atrocities and genuinely despised one another — while secretly caring deeply what the other thought. More » 
News
Water Cooler Games Closes
7:00AM Owen Good | Water Cooler Games, a standard-bearer for intelligent discussion of video games over the past six years, has been shuttered according to co-founder Ian Bogost in a final post made today. More »
Features
The Real Video Game Danger: They’re Too Safe?
8:00AM Brian Crecente | The summers of my childhood were marked with scars. Good scars, not bad ones. More »
Features
7:00AM Mike Fahey | The video game industry was about to get its first major game based on a current military action, only to have publisher Konami pull the plug. What’s wrong with releasing a realistic war video game? More »
Making A Game Out Of Today’s War
7:00AM Mike Fahey | The video game industry was about to get its first major game based on a current military action, only to have publisher Konami pull the plug. What’s wrong with releasing a realistic war video game? More »
Culture
Kids Make Old Games Look Good On New TVs
9:30PM Luke Plunkett | Earlier this week, we saw the ugly side of modern emulation. So, in the interests of fairness, today let’s look at some people hoping to set things right. More »
Culture
Games As Journalism: A Quick Fix For A Dying Medium?
9:20AM AJ Glasser | An Online Journalism Blog article says that traditional news outlets need to start making video games that either replace or improve the delivery of news stories. More »
News
Ian Bogost On iPhone Games: Penis Pumps, Bras and Airport Security
10:00AM AJ Glasser | Ty Colfax at G4TV has an interview up with Persuasive Games founding partner Ian Bogost who documents the agony of getting his iPhone game, Jetset: A Game for Airports, through Apple’s approvals process. More »
News
On the ‘Birth and Death of the Political Game’
3:30AM Maggie Greene | Ian Bogost has a timely piece up on the issue of political-themed games, and their use — or lack thereof. Bogost draws a clear demarcation between politicking (which he feels most of these games do) versus politics — games have the potential to really speak towards politics, but wind up being more or less meaningless tools for politicking: More »
Artistic Sunday Timewaster: Honorarium
4:30AM Maggie Greene | Ian Bogost sent along this link to his latest little title, this one called Honorarium: “An autobiographical art game. Assemble lectures to present. If you do well enough, you can unlock invitations to travel and speak”. I’ve spent a bit of time with it — I guess I can sympathise with aspects of the game, since I’m the poster child for ‘inability to balance life and work — wait, work IS my life.’ Just as interesting, however, is his discussion of the way he created the game through Sims Carnival. EA invited Ian to create a game using the tools available through the site. And, as he points out: Much of the rhetoric surrounding these game creation and distribution sites relies on accessibility: they are supposed to make game development easy. But the truth is, simplified creation tools don’t necessarily make creativity easier or harder, they just impose different constraints. Honourarium [Sims Carnival via Ian Bogost] More »
