Discussion

RW: How did you first come up with the idea of using video games to deliver social and educational messages?

BOGOST: I used to work in advertising and software development. I started building so-called "advergames" almost as early as there was a Web to distribute them on. It was with these games that I first started thinking about the persuasive power of videogames. At the same time, I was working on my Ph.D. in comparative literature, where I'd cultured an interest in philosophy, politics and related matters. So, videogames with an agenda is really just a fusion of a set of unrelated interests, which turned out to be quite related after all.

RW: What was the experience of working on The Howard Dean for Iowa game like?

BOGOST: Working with the Dean campaign was very exciting. If you can remember what mid- to late 2003 felt like, Dean was on top of the world. The game we created got a lot of attention, both good and bad, and I learned a lot from it.

Gonzalo Frasca [co-editor of Water Cooler Games] and I recently wrote an article about the conceptualization and development of the game, which will be out later in 2006 in a collection from MIT Press. As for the game's effect, we watched a lot of people discuss the game, the issues and their issues with the game - and the candidate - online. I think that was the best measure of effect, creating conversations.

RW: What role do you think serious games and social/educational/activist games will take in the future?

BOGOST: After the Dean game I said the next presidential election would have PlayStation 3 games supporting it. I'm not sure if we're going to make it, but my general hope and prediction is the same: games about social and political issues will become a more broadly-accepted notion, like nonfiction books or documentary film.

RW: How did you come up with the idea for Disaffected!? And more importantly, how did you get away with satirizing FedEx Kinko's?

BOGOST: I'd been thinking about the concept of anti-advergames for a while, and Kinko's struck me as a good target because (A) it's a simple experience everyone can relate to, and (B) the problems we're critiquing lead to a deeper consideration of corporate practices in general, which was important to us. FedEx Kinko's has not contacted us, but BusinessWeek reported that they took "strong objection" to the characterization.

RW: How much of a challenge has it been to run your own game developer, considering small independent players don't usually make a lot of money?

BOGOST: It's challenging, but it's reality. We do work for hire to pay our bills and to bankroll the independent projects we want to create. Often those are advertising projects. So, it's not unlike an independent film studio that does TV commercials to fund their daily lives and independent films.

RW: There seem to be fewer original games today outside of a handful of small, independently-produced titles. Why do you think this is?

BOGOST: Console videogames are getting more and more expensive to produce. The stakes are high and the risk tolerance is low. But there are some gems and we shouldn't overlook them. This year, there is Shadow of the Colossus, Guitar Hero, Nintendogs and Psychonauts. These are mainstream games that are quite original. So, all hope is not lost, despite the drive for photorealism at the cost of expression.

RW: As a professor, where do you see video games education going? Will we see more curriculum and programs in the next year or two?

BOGOST: There's only increasing popularity in videogame education, and I think we'll see more and more programs over the next five years. For my part, I think it's very important that programs focus on videogames as cultural artifacts and not just on churning out workers for the industry. We need both production and criticism, and we need it together as well.