Cultural Milestone: New York Times to Carry Newsgames
Games are often in the news, but now, they are the news.
In a landmark development, Georgia Tech prof Ian Bogost, founder of Persuasive Games, announced yesterday that the New York Times will henceforth carry his company’s “newsgames” as part of their editorial content:
I’m excited to announce that Persuasive Games has a new publishing relationship with The New York Times, in which they will be publishing newsgames we create on their op-ed page, as editorial content, not just as games. This is unprecedented, and… represents another important shift in videogames as a medium. This is news/editorial in videogame form, rather than videogames trying to make news fun.
The first NYT offering is Food Import Folly, a game which dramatizes the challenges faced by inspectors charged with ensuring the safety of our food supply.
At present the Persuasive Games offerings are available only to paid subscribers the newspaper’s TimesSelect service.
GP: In gaming terms it’s not exactly the Halo 3 launch, but in the long run the marriage of games and mainstream journalism could have a significant cultural impact. Hats off to Ian Bogost and the Persuasive Games team!
May 25th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Wow, that is huge. The only thing I’m wondering about is mainstream saturation. Afterall, is this something that can be picked up by other news corporations or is this something that can only be specially licensed?
Either way, is it too late to award Prof. Bogost with a “Gamer of Century” award?
May 25th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Serious Comment: This is indeed an impressive event. Perhaps media partnerships with videogame companies, no matter how far removed from the “industry” they are, will allow them to get a better understanding of what goes on in our world. It would be nice to see fewer news stories with a glaring ignorance of even the most basic working of the game industry.
Non-Serious Comment: What are the games for even lite VT and the Thailand shootings going to look like? Are we going to see corporate version of Super Columbine RPG?
May 25th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Cultural Milestone: New York Times to Carry Newsgames…
…
May 25th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
JT: “It’s a murder simulator disguised as news!”
May 25th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Booooo, you need a Times subscription to play. And the “free demo” requires CC info.
Still, it’s good that games are becoming more and more mainstream that they are now considered a valid form of “editorial” content…
May 25th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
YATTA, oy! It seems that NYTimes favors games as an emerging media! :3
May 26th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Does any think there is a down side with the merger games and mainstream media?
May 26th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Hey, very cool. Well done and congrats!
I second Jabrwock’s sentiments, though. Boooo, indeed.
May 26th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
@Merc25:
I think a more general acceptance of games (which is what I think this represents) is a good thing.
I do not, however, like the idea of a total mainstream adoption of the gaming world. It’s like listening to underground types of music, if cooperations eat them all up suddenly it becomes trashed and the audience disappears. We don’t want that. That is obviously an extreme situation but something I think could happen nonetheless.