Previous entry: Scientific Clues to Better Game Design? | Home Page | Next entry: Penny Arcade Expo - The Violence Thing and Beyond
The Future of News Play: Asi Burak Envisions a YouTube for News Games
Posted by Elena Haliczer on 08-04-08G4C: How is Play the News different from your first news game, Peacemaker?
Burak: “Peacemaker had a very different approach. It is a long form. To play the whole, it takes about four hours. It deals with complex issues and gives many perspectives, in order to address all agendas, and create a balanced, objective viewpoint."
"Play the News is very different. It really isn't as rich as Peacemaker on any one issue, but in some ways it is much richer because of the platform. News playing can go on forever, as people play different games and understand the news better."
G4C: Some people have already played some of the news games on Play the News, but for the rest of us, can you please describe the interaction?
Burak: "Right now we have one game template; eventually we will have more. In this game template, the player reads a short amount of background information on the game’s subject matter, and is then presented with a series of crises in the story, all of which can be resolved from the perspective of various real-world actors."
"In each crisis, the player chooses what they’d like to see happen, then predicts what will actually happen. Players’ ultimate ranking on the platform depends in part on how well and consistently they predict real-world outcomes."
"This means that the player does not have the instant gratification of raising their overall ranking. Instead, they are compelled to follow and engage with the actual news story, hoping their prediction was accurate. Once they find out the real-world outcomes, players return to the platform to check their ranking in the system."
"Really, Play the News is like a YouTube for news games. The games are short and to the point, but they get people involved in following the issues over time."
G4C: How does prediction figure into Play the News, and why do you feel it is an important element to the game platform?
Burak: "Prediction to us is a core component because it's giving you a very important reason to follow a news event. Part of the thinking we did about prediction and why it became a major element in Play the News, began as we got feedback about Peacemaker."
"People came to us about Peacemaker and said that for the first time that they understood the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that they could understand it in context, and in a deeper way. They said that having a deeper understanding made them very interested in the outcomes of and reactions to actions taken on both sides of the conflict, and that they would try to predict both."
"We started to see that prediction is a way to engage players because people are interested in competing with each other and themselves. That kind of predictive engagement with content really enhances people's interest in a news story over time."
G4C: Who creates game content and how are you currently choosing topics?
Burak: "Right now we have two guys whose job it is to create one of these games every day. We go through global headlines, decide on the subject, come up with the story outline, find images, and publish the game."
Actually, creating a game is not hard. It basically entails putting the content in the right places in the game template. "
G4C: How does Play the News enable organizations to create their own news games?
Burak: "First of all, this is a platform they can use. It can empower others, to create with low effort on their part, interactive news games about their content.
The whole idea is that we can go to a non-profit or to a news organization and have them write games for their content, and have them embed the games on their site. In essence, we've built the publishing tools to create viral games about the news."
Because it is a web platform, Play the News will evolve over time. It can be so much richer, and a lot more powerful when the user base and partnerships are there. Basically it can be an alternative for news consumption."
G4C: What are your criteria for organizations who want to partner with Play the News?
Burak: "We are very open. It could be very big media organization, a blogger who thinks this would be a great tool for them, a small media organization, a new media organization, or a nonprofit that creates a lot of content and wants to raise engagement."
G4C: What are your immediate and long-term plans for Play the News?
Burak: "Unlike Peacemaker, Play the News is a platform for games, and as such, it will change and improve. Right now it's in beta and we only have one game model. In the future we'll have more. We are also going to do a lot of things to extend our games to wider audiences. In fact, we just launched a Facebook application to reach the Facebook demographic. "
"Our long-term idea is loftier. We really want to prove that through this kind of non-linear interaction with news, through exploring it at your own pace and being rewarded within the system that you become a participant in the creation of as opposed to just a consumer of news."
"It really is the future of news."