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 a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment
ABOUT About This Site - RSS Feed Ian Bogost (editor) Gonzalo Frasca (editor) SPONSORS
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Newsgames Archives
Boxing Politician Games. Again.May 5, 2008 - by Ian Bogost It happens every election cycle, it seems. Games that allow players to make their favorite candidate box against their least favorite candidate, or some variation on a theme of same. We had Kerry vs. Kerry back in 2004, as well as the mobile game Bush vs. Kerry Boxing that same year. Not to mention the Osama vs. Bush boxing toy puppets. Here's the salvo for this year so far. Kewlbox released Hillary vs. Obama. "The faster you click, the more punches you throw!" Then the New York Post offers 2008 Democratic Fight Night (via Kotaku). Both of these are clickfests ... Play the News GameApril 3, 2008 - by Ian Bogost ImpactGames, creators of PeaceMaker, have just soft-launched a public version of their title Play the News. new web-based news prediction game. It's a bit like fantasy sports, in that you play by predicting future performance, but instead of assembling a custom news docket, you play smaller mini-games for each story. These smaller games cover the gamut of news coverage, from politics to entertainment. Here's some of their boilerplate on the game. Impact Games developed a web-based platform to bring interactive gaming elements to the online news media industry: "Play the News" is an engaging, community-driven experience - imagine fantasy sports ... Paul McCartney Divorce NewsgameMarch 28, 2008 - by Ian Bogost The game is called Splash & Grab. Play as Heather Mills, and try to earn a larger divorce settlement by splashing water on McCartney, while avoiding the judge. I guess it's always nice to see another newsgame effort, but for the love of god does everything have to be Whack-a-Mole? Crap; not even a viable example of a tabloid game. (thanks to Ben) ... A Macworld NewsgameJanuary 15, 2008 - by Ian Bogost Today is Macworld, Apple's big trade event in which Steve Jobs puts on a black shirt and shows the latest shiny Apple gadgets. It's a hugely anticipated thing for geeks of all operating system persuasions. While you're waiting for whatever products might be announced, you can play SteveNote Expo, a little MacWorld newsgame. Gameplay involves collecting things Jobs needs before his keynote while avoiding the mobbing press. The idea is clever but it feels a little abstract or disconnected. The visual style and viewpoint reminds me of one of my favorite Mac games of yore, Harry the Handsome Executive. ... Bong Hits 4 JesusJuly 4, 2007 - by Ian Bogost Red Aphid offers Bong Hits 4 Jesus, a response to last week's Supreme Court decision about school districts' right to punish student speech promoting drug use. The game is very simple, just a yes/no quiz sort of thing, which is okay for a newsgame of this kind. It effectively shows the player the inconsistency and ambiguity inherent in the court's decision. ... More Paris Tabloid GamesJune 28, 2007 - by Ian Bogost More silly Paris Hilton tabloid games. The first is just a toy really, a paper doll toy called Dress Paris in Jail. The second is Escape Paris, a room escape game. Quoth the instructions, "Escaping is SO HOT." The latter offers something of a modest challenge. ... Points of Entry: New Newsgame at the New York TimesJune 22, 2007 - by Ian Bogost The New York Times has published this month's Persuasive Games newsgame, Points of Entry. In the game, players compete to award Green Cards under the Merit-Based Evaluation System included in legislation recently debated in Congress. The system, proposed in legislation sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy, outlined a Federal standard for worker visa awards, based not on individual achievement, but on a single, standardized system for all immigrants. Some criticized the bill for rejecting family ties, others for putting business interests in the hands of the government. In either case, the promise of one single method to judge the absolute merit ... My new column: Designing for TragedyJune 14, 2007 - by Ian Bogost Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, Designing for Tragedy, about V-Tech Rampage and making games about profoundly tragic events. Today, a month after Lambourn first released the game, discussion of it has all but disappeared. Some might point to this fact in an argument for the game’s insignificance; it spurred little reaction save shock and disapproval. A web forum set up by a third party to discuss the game has logged no more than five total posts. But I do not believe we ought to forget, or hide, or disavow this game. Read the whole thing over at ... Airport Security Awarded Jury Prize at Games for ChangeJune 12, 2007 - by Ian Bogost This year's Games for Change Festival featured an expo in which some of the community showed games we had created during the last year. A panel of judges reviewed these games, and last night awards were given out for the "best games for change." I'm happy to announce that Persuasive Games' Airport Security was awarded one of the three top jury prizes, for "Best Social Commentary/ Art Game." Other jury awards included Peacemaker for Best Transformation Game and Ayiti: Cost of Life for Best Awareness-Raising Game. As a part of the award we collected an official "GaCha" award statue, depicted ... Tabloid GamesJune 5, 2007 - by Ian Bogost The Game Show Network has released a few newsgames, which we've discussed before here (1, 2, 3). Their latest, The Prison Life: Paris, came out yesterday, in time with the start of Paris Hilton's 45 day jail sentence. The gameplay involves helping Paris press vanity license plates. Over at Gameology, Zach Whalen makes a compelling argument about these games. He calls them Tabloid Games, suggesting that the GSN games are actually trying to do something different from, say, September 12 or the recent newsgames I've been working on. Quoth Zach: Not only do most of these GSN games rely on ... CNN Gets in the (News)gameJune 4, 2007 - by Ian Bogost Two weeks ago over at Persuasive Games, we announced that the NY Times would be publishing our newsgames. There was a lot of response around the web, including several mentions of how the release represented a milestone in games as a medium (for example, at Raph Koster and Game Politics). Well, today I can finally reveal that CNN is getting in the newsgame game too. CNN.com just published a game we created, Presidential Pong, playing off the recent and future presidential debates. Choose one of the leading prexy candidates as your player and one as an opponent, and each has ... The New York Times Publishes Our NewsgamesMay 24, 2007 - by Ian Bogost Today, one of my videogames is on the front page of the Gray Lady. Almost four years ago, Gonzalo suggested "newsgames" as a genre that intersects videogames and political cartoons. Last year, my studio Persuasive Games took our own take on this genre with The Arcade Wire series (Airport Security, Oil God, Bacteria Salad, Xtreme Xmas Shopping), published by AddictingGames.com/Shockwave.com. Those games enjoyed considerable success, tallying at least 10 million plays or so. But Shockwave is still a gaming site, reaching gamers, not necessarily reaching ordinary citizens more broadly. And that's what news and editorial should do. Today, I'm excited ... Break the News, Don't Read ItMay 2, 2007 - by Ian Bogost MSNBC wrote to let us know about Newsbreaker, their Arkanoid clone + news. They call it an "educational online game" -- it takes RSS feeds and drops them into the background, behind the bricks. When you hit certain blocks, the headlines drop down, much like Arkanoid power-ups. The game has high production value and it's actually a decent Arkanoid clone, if a bit slow to start. But I can't help but think that Newsbreaker is poorly conceived. If it is a "newsgame," it's certainly one of a different kind than the ones Gonzalo and I have been advocating for. And ... Persuasive Games in PlayboyMarch 28, 2007 - by Ian Bogost Playboy magazine devoted the Trend Watch portion of their page on games in the April issue on Games that give you something to think about as you twitch. Persuasive Games' Arcade Wire: Airport Security makes the list, as does Molleindustria's McDonald's Videogame, GameLab/UNICEF's Ayiti: Cost of Life, and Super Columbine Massacre RPG. This is probably the only way I could get into Playboy :) ... Airport Security in the Grey LadyJanuary 17, 2007 - by Ian Bogost Joe Sharkey wrote a story for the New York Times business travel section about The Arcade Wire: Airport Security. It's a fun article, and I like it because it targets an audience of normal people, rather than gamers. You can read it here (after the usual NY Times registration wall). ... GSN's Saddam Hussein NewsgameDecember 28, 2006 - by Ian Bogost The Game Show Network has been releasing small newsgames recently, including So You Think You Can Drive, about Mel Gibson's September DUI incident, and Throw the Book at OJ, about OJ Simpson's ill-fated book deal. Their new game is Saddam's Hangman, an inversion of the classic word guessing game: the player must hang Saddam before he gets an appeal. As with the other GSN games, it's more opportunistic than interesting. The network does seem to be getting these newsgames out more rapidly, but I think the Mel Gibson game remains the only one with any real editorial commentary. ... Throw the Book at OJDecember 19, 2006 - by Ian Bogost The Game Show Network, who previously brought us a Mel Gibson newsgame, has created a new one lampooning the recent ill-fated O.J. Simpson book. Throw the Book at O.J. is a simple target shooting game in which the player throws books at O.J.'s head. Meanwhile, Simpson throws footballs at the player. ... Happy Holidays from Persuasive Games: Xtreme Xmas ShoppingDecember 13, 2006 - by Ian Bogost The end of the year is nigh, and with it come holiday greetings in the form of the latest installment in my studio's Arcade Wire newsgame series. For this month's game, we offer a holiday-themed topic: Xtreme Xmas Shopping. In the game, Crazed shoppers doing anything to get their hands on the hottest, scarcest gifts from Christmases present and past. Official blurb: Only in America can shopping be considered a contact sport. And Christmas is the Super Bowl for competitive consumers. You've got a list of must-buy toys for your little toddler, and you'll be damned if someone else gets ... Persuasive Games releases The Arcade Wire: Bacteria SaladNovember 29, 2006 - by Ian Bogost My studio Persuasive Games has released Bacteria Salad, the latest game in the ongoing Arcade Wire series of newsgames, published by Addicting Games and Shockwave.com. Your goal is simple: Harvest mass amounts of cheap produce and sell it for as much profit as possible. But watch out for floods, animal waste, and agroterrorists or your greens might turn, uh - brown — and your customers will suffer. There's a bit of strategy here built around the question of which is safer, small family farms or big industrial ones. Is it possible to run large agribusiness safely? The game is completely ... New column: The little game that could + Barcelona this weekendOctober 18, 2006 - by Gonzalo Frasca SeriousGamesSource just posted my new column. It's about how we all tend to glorify AAA games as the golden standard for quality, when actually such thing does not happen in other media such as film or print. Games with crappy graphics and less-than-great gameplay still play their role in our culture and, guess what, I argue that it's a role that something is equally or more important than WoW or Half-Life 2. Oh, well, you'll have to read the whole thing to see if you agree with me or not. Note: on the text I speculate that the Zidane Head ... Persuasive Games releases The Arcade Wire: Oil GodOctober 18, 2006 - by Ian Bogost My studio Persuasive Games has released Oil God, the latest game in the ongoing Arcade Wire series of newsgames, published by Addicting Games and Shockwave.com. You are an Oil God! Wreak havoc on the world's oil supplies by unleashing war and disaster. Bend governments and economies to your will to alter trade practices. Your goal? Double consumer gasoline prices in five years using whatever means necessary: start wars, overthrow leaders, spawn natural disasters — even beckon the assistance of extra-terrestrial overlords. The game explores the relationship between gas prices, geopolitics, and oil profits. After you've played, mosey over to the ... More Foley GamesOctober 16, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Some of my students at Georgia Tech run a little game jam every Sunday called 4 second games (4sg). They spend four hours making games on a particular theme, with the requirement that each game be played in four seconds (or have a round that lasts four seconds, etc.). Last week they chose Mark Foley as the theme (a topic we've covered before), and a couple amusing specimens emerged. Click through for the details. ... Mark Foley in Help Hastert Hide the PervOctober 6, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Soon after wondering what a Mark Foley newsgame might look like, Zach Whalen managed to dig one up over on The Huffington Post: Help Hastert Hide the Perv, by Ruckus Productions. The game has a funny Benny Hill theme and cute editorial cartoon graphics (if I can say such a thing of a Mark Foley game), but there's not really a game there either... the player hides Foley behind Hastert, Boehner, Shimkus while he supposedly harrasses pages, but there's no representation of success or failure. Still, it's a nice, humourous little game-like experience that still qualifies as a newsgame. ... Iran releases state-funded oil disruption gameSeptember 30, 2006 - by Ian Bogost According to the NY Times, the Iranian government has funded a videogame that illustrates how to disrupt world oil supplies by blowing up a U.S. tanker in strait of Hormuz. This recalls Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's warning that oil exports might be put in jeopardy if the U.S. doesn't back off Iran's nuclear program. The game, called "Counter Strike" (no relation to the Half-Life conversion) was produced by eight people in three months. I had a hard time categorizing this entry. Is this a newsgame? Is it an educational game? Is propagandist, or is it perhaps the first example of a ... Persuasive Games releases The Arcade Wire: Airport SecuritySeptember 19, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Gonzalo and his team coined the term "newsgame" back in 2003 with their excellent piece September 12. If you are a regular visitor to Water Cooler Games, you've probably noticed an increase in our coverage of newsgammes, including games about Zidane, Mel Gibson, and the Crocodile Hunter. Newsgames have a problem though. On the one hand, most rapidly developed, highly topical newsgames are skin-deep. They serve mostly as curiosities, rather than procedural interpretations of the news. On the other hand, deeper interpretations require more time, perhaps too much time. A short time ago, my studio Persuasive Games inked a deal ... Play (and code) the Munch Museum heistSeptember 18, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Recently I wrote about documentary games, games that depict an account of a real-life event. Silence Variations is a new one from Overdog. The game reenacts the 2004 armed robbery of the Munch Museum in Oslo, in which "Scream" and "Madonna" were stolen. The game was commissioned by Bergen Kunsthall for an exhibition in Norway, so it only exists in multiuser installation form. However, the team has released all the code for the game under a Creative Commons license. So, you build your own variations, or use it as a basis for another work. ... Mel Gibson NewsgameSeptember 9, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Zach over at Gameology points to a newsgame about Mel Gibson's recent DUI incident-cum-incendiary drunken smear. So You Think You Can Drive, Mel is perhaps most interesting for its sponsor/publisher, The Game Show Network. To play, collect tequila bottles while avoiding state troopers and the Stars of David thrown by hassidic Jews at the side of the road, whilst Hava Nagila plays in the background. A simple game, but it sports a nice inebriated driving mechanic. On the subject of newsgames, I may have a little something up my sleeve. Stay tuned. ... Croc Hunter NewsgameSeptember 7, 2006 - by Gonzalo Frasca Yesterday we were chatting with Ian and we brainstormed about what a "Death of a Crocodile Hunter" would look like. Not that we were considering doing such a game -actually, we discarded the idea as disrespectful and moved on. But ever since I worked at CNN, everytime that a major news event grasps the world attention, I like to think about what a game about such thing would look like. Well, the world is wide indeed and somebody actually made a newsgame about the death of Steve Irwin. You play the role of his wife and you must kill the ... Bush BackrubAugust 4, 2006 - by Ian Bogost A new little newsgame over at AddictingGames.com, this one taking on the much-publicized impropmptu backrub Bush performed upon German chancellor Angela Merkel. The game, Bush Backrub, is simple enough: move Bush around behind cleverly selected world leaders. Click rapidly to offer a "Texan backrub." Keep the comfort meters full or you lose. As with many of these little games, not really political in content, but an adequate and rapid interpretation of a news event that got a lot of media attention. ... Israel-Lebanon war newsgamesJuly 25, 2006 - by Gonzalo Frasca Ynetnews reports on two newsgames that target Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. The first one, created by somebody called Amir Lotan, uses a Google Earth image -I assume that it is meant to be a picture of somewhere in Lebanon, Beirut perhaps? The gameplay is simple, whack-a-mole style. Nasrallah's face pops up and you must send a fighter jet to bomb him. There's a message at the end of the game but it is in Hebrew so please post a translation if you happen to speak the language. Update: My friend Veronica Singer, who served as my very own personal ... Roll your own Zidane Headbutt GameJuly 20, 2006 - by Ian Bogost After the World Cup Final, we pointed readers to the Zidane Headbutt game. Since then, Atom Entertainment's Addicting Games site has published a revised version, with more Materazzi's and a scoring system. Another nice feature of the new version is that you are awarded more points for a chestbutt than a headbutt, an accurate interpretation of the event itself. More interestingly, Addicting Games is offering the source code for the Zidane game for modification. They are encouraging modders to upload their new creations to Addicting Games, which is a good way to save bandwidth costs and get more traffic back ... Hothead Zidane newsgameJuly 10, 2006 - by Gonzalo Frasca Et oui, mes amis, le jour de gloire n'est pas arrivé!:( The final match of the World Cup is always a must see. Yesterday's was not great and, even though France deserved to win, soccer is not about who deserves to win but about who scores more goals. I was supporting France in a quite schizoid decision (my father's family is of Italian descent but my mother's is French). Anyway, the World Cup is over, long live the World Cup. If you watched the match, you may have witnessed the shameful performance by Zidane (one of the greatest soccer players ... Dick Cheney's Texas TakedownFebruary 17, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Hot on the heels of yesterday's Huffington Post Cheney game, now there's Dick Cheney's Texas Takedown. This one is much more of a game, basically you have to shoot as many orange vest-clad hunting partners as possible within a time limit. The characters are cute (did I just call something related to Dick Cheney "cute"?) and the play mechanic, while simple, gets the point across. Personally, if I were going to make a Dick Cheney game (yes, despite the temptation I'm way too busy), I'd want to have some action orthogonal to shooting Harry Whittington(s), namely shooting quail. The trick ... Living Game Worlds + Dick Cheney Quail HuntFebruary 16, 2006 - by Ian Bogost The Living Game Worlds Symposium is on here at Tech. You can watch a live stream, or watch recaps of the sessions, including Will Wright's keynote, on the conference site. Raph Koster is also blogging it (1, 2). In other news, The Huffington Post (yes, that Huffington) has posted Dick Cheney Quail Hunt, a game about the recent Dick Cheney quail hunting debacle. The game is, well, barely a game if it's a game. It deploys a one-button mechanic and a rhetoric of failure. Go play it, it'll just take a minute and you'll see what I mean. I think ... Interview with JFK Reloaded developerDecember 3, 2004 - by Ian Bogost Computer and Video Games has an interview with JFK Reloaded developer Kirk Ewing. It's the first comments I've seen from the developers after the original press release. (Thanks to commenter Wombat for pointing it out in the comments to our original post. Given the popularity of the topic, I thought it appropriate to bring up to top-level.) ... They are Games! (The Long Road Ahead)November 26, 2004 - by Ian Bogost While the Thanksgiving holiday in the US has interrupted some of the controversy around JFK Reloaded (on WCG: 1, 2), a Google News search today yields some 600 articles about the game worldwide. There is much still to be written formally about the game, and I plan to do so in the near future. For now, I want to talk a little about the implications of the term "game" in this controversy. ... My first thoughts on JFK ReloadedNovember 23, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca Both Ian and myself did not expect JFK Reloaded to have such a big impact, but everybody in the news seems to be talking about it. I think that, even if some people may find it disgusting or not, it is an interesting example worth analyzing. Even though I think that I would never build such a game, it certainly is connected to my interest on games based on the news. Let’s start by a little description (again, I am talking about the demo, haven’t played the full version yet). Basically, the game runs a simulation of JFK’s car driving ... JFK ReloadedNovember 22, 2004 - by Ian Bogost JFK Reloaded is a new game that recreates the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was released today by Traffic Games to mark the 41st anniversary of the event. According to a Reuters article on the game, the Kennedys called it "despicable." But the developers say the game was created to undermine the idea that a conspiracy was behind JFK's assassination. Here's a summary from the article: ... the objective was for a player to fire three shots at Kennedy's motorcade from assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's digitally recreated sixth-floor perch... Points are awarded or subtracted based on how accurately ... Play thy enemyNovember 16, 2004 - by Ian Bogost WCG friend Clive Thompson writes at Slate on Halo 2 as a statement about military politics. ... the ideological payload here comes merely from the act of flipping sides in medias res. In jumping across the foxhole, you're forced to acknowledge that your enemy has its own subjective, if flawed, reasons for fighting, that maybe they're something more than a cardboard cutout you use for target practice. I find these observations quite smart. Could it be that the "fictional" games are more political than the "reality games"? ... Whose Reality Games?November 12, 2004 - by Ian Bogost I flew to the Serious Games Summit DC straight from our Videogames with an Agenda opening in London. As I was stumbling through the Reagan airport after my transatlantic, I remember noticing a very young couple waiting past security, near the escalators. These kids looked barely old enough to be my undergraduate students. They were eerily, perfectly beautiful, she with a long brunette mane and a little too much eye makeup; he with chiseled, square features. I remember them because she was standing behind him as he sat in his wheelchair, missing his right leg from the knee down. She ... Playing TragedyOctober 7, 2004 - by Ian Bogost German developer Replay Studios has announced Survivor, a "3rd-person Disaster Survival Game." According to the developer, "anyone who likes to know how it feels being aboard the Titanic after she hit the iceberg, could go for a try." Promised scenarios include the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and 1999 hurricane Andrew (pictured at right). With efforts like this, there is always a risk of offense. Interestingly, the designers have posted a simple disclaimer on their website, which reads: We do not intent to play down neither the horrors of the events nor the sufferings of ... Playing as KerrySeptember 16, 2004 - by Ian Bogost Following on the ongoing controversy about John Kerry's Vietnam war record, the NY Times reports (registration required) that Kuma Reality Games will release a game later this month that allows players to play John Kerry's Swift boat missions in Vietnam. Screenshots area available here. Reports NYT, The company says the details - complete with the fire of automatic weapons and the exploding of rocket-propelled grenades - are based on the Navy's records of an encounter on Feb. 28, 1969, for which a young Lieutenant Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. The game, scheduled to go online late this month, is ... Newsgaming on BBC/NPRSeptember 11, 2004 - by Ian Bogost Today's edition of the BBC/NPR radio show "The World" aired a story on Newsgaming, featuring Gonzalo and September 12. Grand Text Auto friend Noah Wardrip-Fruin also gets a word in. ... Newspaper Publishes Videogame, Developers RejoiceAugust 25, 2004 - by Ian Bogost Last month I gave a presentation on "Playing the News" at the American Press Institute (filling in for Gonzalo, who couldn't make it, and for whom I provided the best bizarro-Gonzalo I could muster). Among the attendees was Gil Asakawa, executive producer for DenverPost.com. Game journalist and game research circle-runner Dave Thomas (aka buzzcut) works with Gil. Dave let me know that the Denver Post has just published a political game on their website, Campaign Trail 2004, created by Gary Rosenzweig. This is an important example, because the newspaper itself published this game, inside the context of an online article. ... Kuma\PR : more on the reception of newsgamingJuly 12, 2004 - by Ian Bogost Important note: Kuma and Kuma\War has no affiliation with Gonzalo's Newsgaming project; I am adopting the term "newsgaming" here in a more general sense. Inc. Magazine ran an interesting piece in their August issue on Kuma\War, the subscription-based game that lets you play recent events in the continued conflicts in the Middle East (and elsewhere in the future, promises the game's developer, Kuma Reality Games). The Inc. piece focuses on the "bad PR" the game has received, including accusations that the game exploits soldiers, takes advantage of real suffering for profit, and panders to the Department of Defense, among other ... Political games keep getting more pressApril 27, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca After getting more media attention that I ever asked for (see www.ludology.org for my recent incursion on Spanish tabloids with the European royalty), I am glad to report that the press is still interested in political games. New York's 24-hour news station NY1 run a story on political games, focusing on September 12th and also featuing Marc Prensky, from SocialImpactGames.com site. The video also shows the Howard Dean game (uncredited :( and Madrid (again, uncredited). Today, there is also a story (in Spanish, free registration required) in Spain's La Vanguardia. Overall, I am really glad of all this media attention ... Wired on Political GamesApril 22, 2004 - by Ian Bogost Wired News ran a nice article today on Playing Games with a Conscience, featuring quotes from myself, Gonzalo, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, our friend from the field and Grand Text Auto. The article features Gonzalo's September 12 as well as Educational Simulations' Real Life 2004, which we discussed recently here on WCG among other games. Over at Ludology, Gonzalo lamented the fact that there's not time to make more games... this may be a good time to tease a new political game we'll be working on for the current US presidential election cycle, commissioned by a major US political group. Check ... MADRIDMarch 13, 2004 - by Gonzalo Frasca Here is MADRID, the new game that I just finished to put together along with the Newsgaming.com team. It was developed in just over a day and looks to be a simple homage to the victims of the attacks from 2 days ago. Clarification (from Ian): There seems to be some confusion about credits on this game. To set the record straight, MADRID was developed by Gonzalo and his talented Newsgaming team. While he let me see some late betas and do a bit of play testing, those guys should get all the credit. -- ib ... September 12th reaches 100.000 playersOctober 26, 2003 - by Gonzalo Frasca 100 thousand persons have played Newsgaming.com's September 12th during the last few weeks. When I launched this journalistic/political game I knew I was taking quite a risk with its design/scope, but I am thrilled at seeing how well it is performing. So far, reviews have ranged from “an interesting experiment in political speech” (Henry Jenkins, MIT Technology Review) to “an inane piece of offensive crap” (Greg Kostikyan). This is my first post on the subject after the game launched; I have tried not to get into the discussion in order to not interfere with the game’s ideas. Nevertheless, I will ... | |||||||||
