A Serious Look at Serious Games
A recent Christian Science Monitor article profiled “News Games” – the emerging genre of non-fiction games that expose players to the news-making process and help them understand the complexity of issues in the news.
Ian Bogost, the head of Persuasive Games, is an associate professor at Georgia Tech who classifies the roles and uses of news games on his blog. Among these are serious, complex games and quick and easy “tabloid games.”
Some games help the public understand how a newsroom works. The Newseum in Washington, D.C. has released two games via News University, Be a Reporter and Be an Editor, and anyone can play them online. Link TV’s interactive Global News Literacy modules show players how news is covered in different countries and allow users to remix their own clips.
Link TV's News Remixer
Games can also make complicated problems easier to understand and solve. Knight News Challenge winners have received grants to create games for community engagement.
Paul Grabowicz’s Remembering 7th Street allows players to explore the history and demise of the Oakland, CA jazz scene in the 1940s and 50s.
Remembering 7th Street
Gotham Gazette’s games about New York City like The Garbage Glut and Budget Maze let players become policymakers.
Budget Maze
Nora Paul, director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute for New Media Studies, modified the Neverwinter Nights game to create “Playing the News”, starting with games about using ethanol as fuel. Angela Anthony’s game will turn energy conservation into a friendly competition among neighbors.
Playing the News' Ethanol Issues Board Game
The Knight News Game Awards were presented in May at the 6th annual Games for Change Conference. Check out Best News Game winner Play the News; Lifetime Achievement Award winner September 12th, a Toy World; and honorable mentions Budget Maze and Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City.
A Play the News game called Israel-Iran Enrichment Faceoff
Knight News Challenge winners blog about their games on PBS’s Idea Lab.
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July 13th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
J-Lab has a good list of games used for news purposes, too: http://www.j-lab.org/cool_stuff/category/games/
July 13th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
We covered the aforementioned Games for Change fest in our latest issue. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6666678.html
Interested in pursuing the topic of serious games in a feature article.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
[...] un buen artículo en el blog de la Fundación Knight sobre videojuegos utilizados para promover información noticiosa, que enmarcan dentro de la idea más amplia que es producir juegos para “jugar en [...]
September 15th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
This method of learning\training through serious games
Seems to be the right path of how to educate future generation
Because this sort of games (serious games) offers a new method of learning while playing
This method fit just right to children and young adults
Furthermore more the online game can show statistic data and compare the players and grade them
Many universities and first class companies all over the word use this sort of games to train students and employs
A new form of those games are business games on\off line such as The CEO Game ( business game) and stereo hade phone (start-up company build up)