Fat Tuesday

Take the challenge: Fit or fat? Live or die? You decide with FATWORLD! ITVS Interactive (Independent Television Service) and PBS’ Emmy® Award-winning weekly series, Independent Lens, has just published FATWORLD, an online videogame created by Atlanta-based independent game studio Persuasive Games (spearheaded by our own Ian Bogost) about the politics of nutrition. FATWORLD explores the relationships between obesity, nutrition and socioeconomics in the United States and is free to play.  Do you think it's a coincidence that FATWORLD is being released the same week that the chief executive of McDonalds UK is blaming videogames for childhood obesity?     

After you've played the game, read the book!  In Persuasive Games, Ian Bogost looks at how games, like Fatworld, can mount arguments, make expressive statements about the world around us, and persuade us to  think about things in a different way.