Suleman has suffered no dearth of criticism, both in the form of written commentary, talk radio banter, and even editorial cartoons. One such cartoon depicts a flying mother ejecting babies, a family below struggling to catch them. The caption: "News Item: Single, Unemployed Mom Tests Carrying Capacity of the Planet." 

Others make similar digs, suggesting that Suleman is an elaborate panhandler. One riffs off the widely-published photograph of Suleman's enormous pregnant stomach, slapping ads and emblems on it, including donation requests via PayPal and Visa. Another gets in both Angelina Jolie and videogame references, casting Suleman in the former's shoes as Nadya Croft: Womb Raider. Two more connect the octuplet's mom with its contemporary event, the Obama economic stimulus plan, one suggesting that a large litter might help bear the burden of the stimulus plan's debt; the other comparing the irresponsibility of Suleman with that of the Democrats by applying an overstretched womb to a donkey.  

All of these cartoons are biting in their own way, but it's interesting to notice that none of them address the fate of the mother or the children. Other forms of written and spoken editorial took on this topic more than any other, musing on how one can take care of 14 children, and what ill effects eight babies might have in the hands of a human mother designed to care for two at most.

This is exactly the theme The Octuplet's Game takes up. The game's subtitle (translated; the game is in French), reads "Now you can be a milk machine!" Gameplay is modified Space Invaders: the player controls the two breasts of a milk machine. Eight babies line the top of the screen, each nestled into a color-coded test-tube to match its gender. Occasionally the babies cry, inching their way down the screen. Pressing spacebar fires milk, which placates the crying babies above. Failing to sate a baby such that it finds the bottom of the screen ends the game. 

One catch: the milk machine can't operate continuously. A pump at screen right shows the machine's current power. Once it's depleted, the player must press the B and G keys in alternation to refill it. 

As editorial, the game makes a few points effectively. It highlights the inhuman act of technological medicine, which transforms mother into machine. It questions whether such a machine can ably tend to so many children in the way a mother can, mirroring the concern expressed in other media about Suleman's ability to mother such a large brood. And it impersonalizes the children themselves, absurdly extending their test-tube conception to a cyborg- childhood. 

But unlike those criticisms in print and on the radio, The Octuplet's Game puts the player in the shoes of the mother-"milk machine." This creates an experience contrary to that of the machine -- that of the fallible human actor. Tending to eight infants at once as a single mother becomes an idea one can experience rather than just ponder. And indeed, it's hard not to see the babies just as fluid-sinks rather than human beings.

Editorially, The Octuplet's Game functions effectively then, even if it's not the most sophisticated, scathing, or insightful example of public commentary. But something more bizarre is at work in this game. Or more properly, around it.

I already noted the game is in French, but not the reason why. It was created by the French interactive agency L'Agence Toriche, which provides services in "eMarketing and rich media." Unlike their usual work, this game was not created under the purview of a client; instead, the agency made it themselves as a way to earn attention, to "get buzz" in their own marketing parlance.

Web traffic is a common motivation for creating "tabloid games," all those rough little Flash titles about Paris Hilton and OJ Simpson. Those games are created quickly, to capitalize on the recentness of an event in the public's mind. In the case of The Game Show Network or AddictingGames, they function as content of the anonymous sort--any sort of material is acceptable so long as it brings eyeballs to serve advertising against. 

Likewise, The Octuplets Game does something similar, but for different reasons. L'Agence Toriche doesn't make money from the game, at least not directly as a portal would from advertising. 

Instead, the agency publishes a game like this to increase their renown in the world of web games and viral marketing, a core aspect of their business. By demonstrating that they can successfully capitalize on a recent event to drive traffic to themselves, they show current and potential clients their prowess in offering such services. The Octuplets Game is an advergame as much as it is an editorial game.

But an editorial game it is, a valid and viable one that says something critical, amusing, evne if perhaps not insightful about a situation that garnered a lot of news coverage. The most interesting fact to note about this game, perhaps, is that an interactive agency rather than a news organization chose to produce it. The same benefits could have been reaped by a newspaper, but the foresight--or the will--to pursue such a course didn't arise.