Cookie Monster YouTube game asks 'Will it Sink or Float?'

Our beloved blue fur ball from the around the corner on Sesame Street, Cookie Monster, has become somewhat of a YouTube sensation lately. And his most recent outing on the ubiquitous video site is, thankfully for you parents' sake, much more educational. In the "Sink or Float" YouTube game, Cookie Monster and his friend Emma ask for your help in testing whether five different objects will either sink or float in a tank of water.

Like most standard interactive YouTube games, clicking on one of the four options will jump you to the result, which will have another set of options toward the end of the video. More specifically, your task is to answer whether one of five items, Ernie's rubber ducky, a lemon, a lime, a coconut or a rubber band ball, will sink or float in water. The game's primary goal is to give kids a crash course in the scientific method. But if you have a fish tank (or in my case an aquatic turtle tank), just remember to keep it firmly sealed in case the little ones get any smart ideas.

With the bonafide blue beast recently attracting over 1.5 million people to his Saturday Night Live audition tape, a regularly updated video blog on Facebook and a his own Tumblr, we doubt Cookie Monster will be leaving the internet behind anytime soon. Let's just hope his future exploits are as fun as this one.

Infographic: Almost 60 percent of social gamers play with their friends

And the other 40 percent play with complete strangers. Alright, that's not true, but any update on the FarmVille fan page says otherwise. According to an infographic thrown together by Rounds, a Facebook video chat app, and research firm Column Five Media, nearly 60 percent of North American social gamers play with their friends. From there, just 33 percent play with their siblings and 25 percent play with parents and spouses.

You could infer from this data that a large percentage of social gamers either play with others they've met through games on Facebook or another social network, or that they play alone. But considering that would cost an enormous amount of money, we're going with the former. Ultimately, this data speaks to either players making friends out of necessity or that true connections are forming through social games.

The infographic goes on to say that there are 100 million social gamers in North America, which sounds about right given recent estimates. (That's about a third of everyone in the U.S.) A fraction of that, 26 million, are playing mobile social games. Though, that can easily be attributed to smartphones still perceived and priced as luxury devices.

Citing sources such as The New York Times and and MIT, this infographic drives one major point home: Social gaming is the fastest growing and evolving genre in the history of video games, and we're just getting started. Check out the whole infographic below:

[Via SocialTimes]

Do you believe social games will become the mode of gaming going forward? Do you play social games more with real-life friends or acquaintances found through playing? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment

Social Evolution of Gaming