A Foul Anti-Advergame: At Least It Has Chicken

With the massive amount of advertisement and product placement existing in video games today, it is natural to see satires of advergames emerge. Ian Vogost identifies these games as anti-advergames and describes their purpose as either advertising against a specific product or fighting against the overall idea of advertising in games. Vogost himself has personal experience with anti-advergames, having worked on a game that critiques Fedex Kinko, Disaffected! In this arcade-style game, the player steps into the shoes of multiple incompetent employees at a store location filled with disgruntled customers. I find it successful at demonstrating the poor service that one might find at a Kinko's store and identifying the underlying problems.

Vogost analyzes another anto-advergame, Super Chick Sisters, on www.watercoolergames.com. It was created by PETA and Kentucky Fried Cruelty, an organization against KFC's violent methods of chicken-slaughtering. The game itself is presented as an obvious parody of Super Mario Bros. with poultry in place of plumbers. He points out that the game could have been much more successful at conveying its message by involving the player in the slaughtering process instead of simply reusing Super Mario's gameplay. He states that the game "works more against Nintendo than against KFC." I fully agree with Vogost; the message doesn't come across if the game isn't interesting. In addition, the facts about KFC's questionable activities seem to be only presented through dialogue by NPC's. Scrolling through pages of text is not very interactive and can be skipped over easily. Including Pamela Anderson, a Kentucky Fried Cruelty spokesperson, as a character in the game (Pamela in place of Princess Peach) might not be fully understood and takes the focus away from PETA's campaign.