Sock and Awe Game Becomes Popular Phenomenom
Shoe Throwing Online Video Game is an Unexpected Success
Iraqi TV reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi, 29, angry over U.S. President Bush's invasion in Iraq, hurled his shoes in protest at the American leader during a speech in Baghdad on December 14th. As a result of this bizarre incident, a number of Bush-bashing Internet games have popped up all over the web.
One in particular known as Sock and Awe, has had over 50 million shoes thrown already by online game players. The game created by 24-year-old Alex Tew from London, was initially designed to promote a new humor website that he was preparing to launch, and Tew wasn't expecting the hastily made game to become such a hit.
Here is a brief overview of how the Sock and Awe game is played, how points are scored, and other details including who is playing it the most.
- In Sock and Awe, players attempt to throw brown shoes at a moving target of U.S. President George Bush. Bush tries to dodge the shoes being hurled at him during each 30 second game. If hit, Bush's face turns a shade of purple.
- The object of the game is to hit Bush in the face with a shoe as many times as possible within a half-minute period. The score appears in the top left hand corner of the screen, and an opportunity to either play again or post a high score is given at the end of each game.
- The Sock and Awe website also asks for suggestions from players as to which other world leaders they would want to throw things at.
- The top ten Bush-Shoeing countries are the United States, France, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, United Kingdom, Germany and Pakistan.
The Shocking Success
Sock and Awe Creator, Alex Tew, had no idea the game would become so popular, according to his eBay auction page. “We built SockandAwe.com just for fun (and partly as a promo for our start-up, PopJam) but had no idea it would become quite so popular.
So, now we are selling it because a) we don’t really know what to do with it, b) we can recover some of the hosting costs (plus pizza and beer costs!), and c) the money will be useful for our little four-man start-up,” he wrote.
The game was sold on eBay to the English based Internet company Furba for 5,215 pounds ($7,818), an excellent profit for only four days of work. The game continues to be followed and played by people worldwide, and has even inspired fans to post YouTube videos of themselves playing the game.
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