Playing with Fire: When Advergaming Backfires - Gonzalo Frasca
On April 2004, the UK branch of Intel Corporation launched a web-based advergame. Titled The Intel IT Manager Game: The simulation of an IT department, this Flash-based advergame was available for free on Intel's site (it was a different game than the currently available 2.0 version, which can be played here. The game, which had above average production quality, basically simulated the management of an Information Technology (IT) department. The player had to hire IT employees, as well as manage a budget and buy computer equipment, the latter of which was either generic or Intel-branded. The game was meant for players to learn more about the benefits of Intel IT solutions, and was developed by Euro RSCG, a well-known advertising agency. Surprisingly, the simulation was only available online for a few days. Suddenly, the game page was removed and replaced with the following message: ”Your Interest in the IT Manager game is appreciated. Intel is currently making revisions to the game, please check back again in the end of May to test your IT Manager skills.” Under normal conditions, such message would mean that the game was buggy and that it would be made available once Intel ironed out the technical problems. The game had a bug indeed, but not in the traditional software sense. Intel's advergame was infected by a far more interesting form of glitch -a cultural bug- one that only affects serious games. The actual problem was that the IT Game was not compatible with 50 percent of the player population. Believe it or not, this work environment simulator would not allow players to hire any female employees.
The "bug" was fixed the following month. In May 2004, Intel re-launched the game, introducing a brand new feature: women. The situation was covered in many blogs, including Water Cooler Games, where a person by the name of “D.Dooler” posted the following comment: ”I think it is a shame that just because a segment of the population is not represented in a game that people go all to heck over it. Who the heck cares, it is a game, leave it alone. It is examples like this that keep companies and products from being developed over fear of being 'politically incorrect'” Dooler's comment deserves to be taken seriously: should we really care about these issues on games? Or are we just motivated out of political correctness? Well, to start with, Intel did care enough about these issues to hastily pull the game offline until they “upgraded” it.
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