The first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them. - Jeff Jarvis

Journalism in videogames: apply as a seasoning

by Jason Preston

If you’re tracking the recommended reading I have in my sidebar, you probably spotted the post on Poynter last week about the idea of using videogames for journalistic storytelling.

As a long time videogamer and someone who used to run a video game web site, I wonder if making videogames to inform people about journalism is really the right approach. The “serious games” market has suffered with the very community they hope to reach out to (the videogame community) because it tries to approach serious issues in a medium that people use for escape.

I think that journalism videogames developed in the same vein would suffer a similar affliction.

Which is not to say that they shouldn’t be made at all. Serious games have their purpose and it is a great one - interactive computer-based learning is undoubtedly going to be a key component in the way we teach people going forward.

But applied as a seasoning, think about what it could do culturally.

If you buy the premise that regular news exposure engenders interest in the news, and I do buy that premise, then one of the things we should strive to do as a culture that would both improve our democracy AND help create better news customers is to bring the news to people who are currently avoiding it.

Grand Theft Auto IV, mentioned by Thomas Huang in the Poynter column, is the latest game in a series of wildly popular action games famous for, among many other things, letting the gamer listen to a wide variety radio stations with an apparently endless catalog of music.

This is a game played by a lot of people who, statistically, are not reading the news. I can’t find an appropriate link for this, but a book I recently read shows a strikingly low number of teens and twenty-somethings are following news regularly.

OK, so we’ve got an extremely popular video game that’s reaching an audience who doesn’t appear to be following the news regularly. There’s one more piece to this puzzle.

In Game Advertising

In 2006 I interviewed Darren Herman of IGA (In Game Advertising) about the future of ad placement in videogames.1 One of the biggest reasons that in-game advertising is likely to work from a business perspective is that nearly all gaming devices are now (or will be soon) connected to the internet all the time, which means that advertisers can push new and relevant content into games.

Essentially, broadband connections to consoles, cell phones, computers, and handheld gaming devices allows game developers to sell rotating ad space in their virtual worlds.

But advertisements are by no means the only thing that internet pipeline can carry.

What if GTA IV partnered with a radio station to deliver real world news in-game? What if gamers could suddenly keep up on the election while they’re cruising through the streets of Liberty City?

It sounds like such a small idea—and it is. That’s part of its power. Like humor, journalism in an entertainment medium is probably best applied as a seasoning. I think a project like this could lead to a real growth in news awareness, and that’s a good thing for everyone.

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1. I’m following the videogame style guide, which makes “videogames” one word. ↩

May 7, 2008 | Filed Under Advice 

3 responses to “Journalism in videogames: apply as a seasoning”

  1. jope on May 7th, 2008

    An intriguing idea, but I suspect that it’s just not feasible. I’m a news junkie, and yet if I were offered a means to project news onto my goggles during a game of paintball, which from a technical standpoint should become possible soon, I would decline. Why? It would completely screw up my game, in particular my quick responsiveness and my ability to a maintain mental buffer a lot of pertinent in-play details. As for a slower game like, say, golf? Perhaps. (in fact, there’s some evidence that /reducing/ concentration actually help one’s golf game) But that’s straying outside the demographic you’re talking about.

    In the end though, the reason this will never happen is more irksome: No profit incentive for including the news feed.

  2. Jason Preston on May 7th, 2008

    You paintball on the computer?

    The trick is to integrate the news in ways that makes sense with the gameplay. Having a radio in a GTA IV car playing up-to-date news seems like a logical mesh to me.

    A couple other ideas might be news stories in computer consoles that you have to hack (think Deus Ex) or the inclusion of real news headlines in a “bottom line” ticker on a fake broadcast in a game like Command & Conquer or Splinter Cell.

    as for profit incentive, you’re probably right. I’d think of it as an outreach/advertising effort on the part of news organization. Pay a game publisher to include branded news content in the hope that it will engender brand loyalty and help create news reading habits outside of a videogame.

  3. jope on May 7th, 2008

    Heh, I was waiting for that retort. =) Admittedly, I don’t play games, so I find it easier to use a real-world analog to convey the point, but I think it’s equally applicable. With regards to driving, I very nearly included a comment exactly along those lines: I love listening to news on the radio while driving around town. I would not, however, want to do so while racing my car. Waaay too much contention for cognitive resources.

    It would be a big stretch for news organizations to build loyalty in an audience that, as already noted, is so entrenched in their dislike of news. At least, that is, if the news is basically just tacked on in the manner you describe, unconnected with the narrative of the game. Now, if there were a way to stitch news in as a useful part of the narrative, that would be a very different matter and I would eat it up. I don’t foresee that as being possible during our lifetimes though.

    PS… I wanted to comment on that interview (re-)post, but I can’t figure out how to do it without jumping through the Disqus login hoop. Am I missing something obvious?

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