Ian Bogost's development company Persuasive Games has always produced some rather thought-provoking titles. The gamesblog covered last year's Airport Insecurity, and has talked at length about some of their political products, Dean for America and Take Back Illinois.
Now, under the shadow of recent press about the relationship between online games and in-game advertising agencies, Bogost and his team have released Disaffected, a title which challenges advergaming by subverting a company's brand.
From the press release:
While examples of branded games go as far back as the Atari 2600, "advergames" have become very popular in the last ten years, first as web-based games and now as both casual games and product/ad placement in commercial games. Advertising in games is a growing yet little questioned area of gaming. Are games only capable of carrying positive advertising messages? Or can they also enact dissatisfaction and criticism against corporations? Anti-advergames are to detract from or call into question a set of products or services for expressive, cathartic, social, or political purposes.
Disaffected puts players in the role of an employee of US photocopy giant Kinkos, and challenges him or her to understand why the real-life employees are often so miserable. It presents a very simplistic premise, and one which may offend both Kinkos and the employees themselves. As a casual game, it can't get as deep into the sociohistorical aspects that dog underpaid, under-trained and often under-age employees of US national corporations that Eric Schlosser's books Fast Food Nation (Guardian excerpts) or Reefer Madness expose, but it's an interesting scat on the seemingly pervasive branded advergames that have taken over.
If anything, the pretense behind Bogost's work always makes me smile. You can hear more from him in this gamesblog interview.
