''Sock and Awe'' is a minimalist 2008

Flash game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-play ...

created by British entrepreneur Alex Tew, recreating the

Bush shoeing incident On 14 December 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi removed his shoes and threw them at United States president George W. Bush during a joint press conference with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq. Bush quickly ducked, ...

and putting the player in control of journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi who flung a shoe at

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

during a news conference. Although the game was hastily put together, it went viral and received widespread news coverage right around its release, only a day after the actual incident. It is a well-known example of a

newsgame Newsgames are a genre of video games that attempt to apply journalistic principles to their gameplay. Newsgames can provide context to complex situations which might be hard to explain without experiencing the situation firsthand. According to ne ...

. The name of the game is a pun on the US

shock and awe Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. Though ...

military tactic.

Release

Alex Tew, the author, was a "student entrepreneur" at the time, and previously "Internet famous" for

The Million Dollar Homepage The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a pixel grid; the image-based li ...

, a successful ploy website that helped him pay for his college tuition. On 18 December, the day of the shoe throwing incident, Tew was part of a group of people on Twitter trading ideas on what might be a good tabloid headline describing the incident when somebody suggested "Sock and Awe." Already by the following day, Tew had registered the domain ''sockandawe.com'', developed and uploaded the game. Two days later, the game had already been played 1.4 million times. At the end of the week, Tew had managed to sell the site on

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

for £5,215 GBP to a company called Fubra. Tew cheekily commented to a Reuters journalist: "From Monday concept, Tuesday launch, Wednesday growth, we’ve had a Thursday exit." By 22 December, 49 million shoes had been thrown in the game.

Copycat games

While the game's crudeness has meant it has remained mostly uncommented on in video gaming academia, the mainstream media attention it received motivated several other game developers to try their hand at similar

newsgames Newsgames are a genre of video games that attempt to apply The journalistic principle, journalistic principles to their gameplay. Newsgames can provide context to complex situations which might be hard to explain without experiencing the situation ...

. At least nine copycat shoe-throwing games were created, and the creator behind '' Raid Gaza!'', Marcus Richter, later cited ''Sock and Awe'' as an inspiration for his game. Tew developing and releasing this game was one of the reasons why

Milo Yiannopoulos Milo Yiannopoulos (; ''né'' Hanrahan; born 18 October 1984) is a British far-right political commentator. His speeches and writings criticise Islam, feminism, and social justice. Yiannopoulos is a former editor of ''Breitbart News'', an Americ ...

, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, referred to Tew as the "most annoying man on the Internet."

References

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Bush Flash games Iraq War video games Newsgames Parody video games Political satire video games Single-player video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in 2008