Have Browser Games Taken Over the Role of Politicial Cartoons?
Have Browser Games Taken Over the Role of Politicial Cartoons?
December 19, 2008
On Sunday, an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President Bush during a press conference.
Within days, nearly a half-dozen Flash games lampooning the incident appeared on the web (you'll find all of them linked here on GamePolitics).
Given the speed and reach of the web, the Amazon Game Room Blog wonders whether browser games have replaced the role of the political cartoon in modern society:
Web-based flash games continue to take over the satirical role that political cartoons once filled... Our country has a rich and scathing history of political satire in cartoon form in newspapers and magazines and anyone who noticed how fast the [various Bush/shoe games] popped up on the Web after the footwear was flung... should be able to acknowledge the potential for this in flash technology.
The games are certainly is no works of art, but they were not designed to be awe inspiring. They were instead designed to capture the moment, and immortalize it from a particular point of view that people in this particular time can appreciate, or at least recognize. In a hundred years... these snippets of code will offer a window into the past... it is all just part of a media continuum that stretches forward and back further than we know.
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Posted 11/22/09 at 09:45am
ZippyDSMlee: JD:I think doc phill is still sout about the break up with his wife he dose not fill holes as much as make them bigger these day
ZippyDSMlee: JD:I think doc phill is still sout about the break up with his wife he dose not fill holes as much as make them bigger these day
Posted 11/22/09 at 12:06am
JDKJ: You should get Phil McCraken to help you spackle those banisters.
JDKJ: You should get Phil McCraken to help you spackle those banisters.
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:57pm
ZippyDSMlee: Oh in the pirate hunter article I need my song ieda heckled DS,JD,Beemon sic im !!!
ZippyDSMlee: Oh in the pirate hunter article I need my song ieda heckled DS,JD,Beemon sic im !!!
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:56pm
ZippyDSMlee: JD:no I am tried from prepping the banisters for painting , worked on them from 12 to 4 and 6 to 8...after I got back from the store...got up early got ready...blah...been up all day..I need a nap...
ZippyDSMlee: JD:no I am tried from prepping the banisters for painting , worked on them from 12 to 4 and 6 to 8...after I got back from the store...got up early got ready...blah...been up all day..I need a nap...
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:42pm
JDKJ: No. You gonna stay up late tonight soldering?
JDKJ: No. You gonna stay up late tonight soldering?
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:41pm
ZippyDSMlee: JDKJ:Don't you mean Mctite?
ZippyDSMlee: JDKJ:Don't you mean Mctite?
Posted 11/21/09 at 11:33pm
JDKJ: @Zip: Neil, Bob, and Lik McTaint. The McTaint brothers. LOL!!!
JDKJ: @Zip: Neil, Bob, and Lik McTaint. The McTaint brothers. LOL!!!
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:44pm
Flamespeak: I still think military personell, killing other military personell, on a military complex should be handled by military courts.
Flamespeak: I still think military personell, killing other military personell, on a military complex should be handled by military courts.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:43pm
Flamespeak: I could see this a mixture of the two charges rather than just one or the other.
Flamespeak: I could see this a mixture of the two charges rather than just one or the other.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:43pm
Flamespeak: I think this was mainly a person who snapped, but evidence is showing he definitely had strong inlinations to islamic-extremism.
Flamespeak: I think this was mainly a person who snapped, but evidence is showing he definitely had strong inlinations to islamic-extremism.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:41pm
Flamespeak: People are trying to claim that Hasan's actions were not terrorism. I don't jump on the 'terror train' like others, however
Flamespeak: People are trying to claim that Hasan's actions were not terrorism. I don't jump on the 'terror train' like others, however
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:38pm
mentor07825: Britain certainly does deserve it! And the French! God damn it, it was a hand ball!!!
mentor07825: Britain certainly does deserve it! And the French! God damn it, it was a hand ball!!!
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:34pm
ZippyDSMlee: mentor07825:Well Brittan dose deserve it....
ZippyDSMlee: mentor07825:Well Brittan dose deserve it....
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:33pm
ZippyDSMlee: Alyric:I don;t hasliburton having to pay back billoins... don;t you love it when the rich roll over the goverment without a care?
ZippyDSMlee: Alyric:I don;t hasliburton having to pay back billoins... don;t you love it when the rich roll over the goverment without a care?
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:32pm
mentor07825: I say we nuke the whales, for the benefit of both mankind and the environment.
mentor07825: I say we nuke the whales, for the benefit of both mankind and the environment.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:28pm
Austin_Lewis: I say we try Al Gore too. I always said he was in on the racket.
Austin_Lewis: I say we try Al Gore too. I always said he was in on the racket.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:16pm
Alyric: The leaked information proves these organizations knowingly defrauded governments (i.e., taxpayers) out of billions of dollars. Yet there will probably never be a trial.
Alyric: The leaked information proves these organizations knowingly defrauded governments (i.e., taxpayers) out of billions of dollars. Yet there will probably never be a trial.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:15pm
Flamespeak: working on other things makes me angry. I might have had a jet pack by now. :p
Flamespeak: working on other things makes me angry. I might have had a jet pack by now. :p
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:14pm
Flamespeak: Just thinking of all the time and manpower wasted to try and make things emit less CO2 emmision that could have been spent
Flamespeak: Just thinking of all the time and manpower wasted to try and make things emit less CO2 emmision that could have been spent
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:07pm
Alyric: @Zip: FYI, the construction of solar panels puts out more pollution than any form of energy production. To say nothing of the toxic components of the panels that cannot be recycled.
Alyric: @Zip: FYI, the construction of solar panels puts out more pollution than any form of energy production. To say nothing of the toxic components of the panels that cannot be recycled.
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Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Comments
Join political cartoons in satire? Maybe. Replace them? God, I hope not. Most flash games are pretty lame and aren't particularlly witty or deep. On the other hand, the genre of political comics has become something artful, and are even sometimes profound. I mean, it'd be one thing if the flash games included satirical dialog of some sort about issues and relevances. As it is, they're just shoes flying across the screen at a dopey looking target.
These flash games may parallel political cartoons in that they capture a moment of public attention in a preservable format, but I'm not seeing any "satire" in the shoe games I've seen thus far. The only message evident is "lol throw a shoe at Bush." Cartoons offer (some of them anyway) a measure of actual commentary on what we're talking about, not just a snapshot of what we were forwarding to our friends.
Do Not Talk About Feitclub http://www.feitclub.com
While the current crop of flash game is not quite ready to replace the role of political cartoon, I think at in a decade or two, they will. For one, news outlets are increasingly moving online where these games have a home. More news outlets will recognize that the rising generation will be more motivated to come to the site by games than a comic. Two, the people designing these games will become more mature and better able to convey the message they want in the game. These games have the possibility to be more expressive than their passive single frame counterpart.
So far in this instance the only one I can think of that actually has a message of sorts is the one where you play a Secret Service agent trying to stop shoes. The message wasn't very good or clear, but it was the only one that had a syblance of a mesage.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
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Zachary Knight has it right. Political cartoons are critical, clever, and comment on the situations they depict.
These games instead should be called tabloid games. They simply point to an event to exploit it. It's a valid, if all to common, mode of discourse in today's culture. There is nothing "rich and scathing" about the pointless shoe throwing games we've seen in the past week, nor many other examples I've tracked over the past few years (Zidane head butt, Paris Hilton in jail, etc.)
Incidentally, Gonzalo Frasca and myself have been carrying the torch of games as political cartoons for years now; the challenge of making rapid, meaningful games that get published in a news context is rough going.
Ian Bogost
These flash games have some potential, but we should wait until that potential either falls flat or is fully realized before pitting a flash game against a well-done political cartoon.
Anyway, I think there will always be room for politicial cartoons. Flash games may not be meant to be an intelligent commentary. I think that they fill another need: the need to sometimes laugh at something ridiculous or trivialize something serious. The event falls into the former category. Or just the need to have a distraction from the normally pessimistic and dramatic news, but in a way that everyone can get the message. I think that final point is the appeal of flash games, to be honest.
Political cartoons are dieing as big media weeds them out due to nto wanting to offend anyone..namely thier backers...
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Pirates,Shearers,Lenders and downloaders are not a market that can be taped by the mainstream.
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I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
I'd say the likelyhood of mini-games overtaking political cartoon as a form of satire are pretty high. Not because the mini-games themselves are better, but because the primary format for the political cartoon - the newspaper - is a dying breed.
The Honest Game - http://www.thehonestgame.org
The front page of a recent Chicago newspaper shows a large cartoon Rod Blagojevich on the podium, getting attacked by a barrage of shoes. I think it shows a good example of two recent political memes colliding.