Playing the News:

Using games for news, information, and education

Nora PaulUniversity of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationInstitute for New Media Studieswww.inms.umn.edunpaul@umn.edu

What Game Projects Have Taught Us*

• Behind the Message game mod

• Knight News Challenge game build

• Digital Story Effects Lab game testing

* Me and Kathy Hansen

Game Mod for Journalism Training

Message Analysis

Context Content

•Who is my audience?•Message purpose•Message time and space•Message format and channel

•What is the topic?•Topic terminology•Questions to answer •Narrowing the focus

Potential Contributors

Evaluate and Select

Synthesize

Craft the Message

ScholarlySources

InstitutionalSources

InformalSources

JournalisticSources

• monitor• search• interview

• monitor• search• interview

• monitor• search• interview

• monitor• search• interview

What gamers taught us•They know more than we ever will•They want every convenience •They want to figure it out on their own

What we learned about games•The technology will keep changing•Big game companies have scary lawyers

Next step

Game Grant

Hypothesis

• Using a game interface would be an effective and engaging way to present the different perspectives of a news issue.

Challenge

• Creating a simple template that would allow the newsroom to “unplug” one issue and create the game for another issue

Approaches taken

• Game-lets challenge

• Game environment

• Clue-style board game

x

Our challenges• Complex play / simple build• Reusable front-end • Making reading engaging• Determining metrics• Bottomline: Does it work? Is it worth it?

What we’ve learned about game builds• There are more ideas than time to do them• Figure the time it will take, multiply by 5• Test before launch• Fun / fast / informative --- incompatible?

Comparison Testing

Version 1 – Traditional Story

Version 2 – Organized Facts / Links

Version 3 – Story and Links

The Games

Version 5 - Board / card game

Version 4 - Role-playing / simulation

What metrics matter most? Engagement?

What metrics matter most? Learned something?

What metrics matter most? Interest?

What do you think? Great way to present info?

What do you think? Fun?

What do you think? Brand value?

The one winner for games…

• Time spent

Comments – Version 4

• I didn’t know how to work the game / Easy to use• It was boring / It was fun!

• Game format not efficient use of my time, I did not want to take the time to learn how to play the game just to get info.

• I have very little patience with the game format - I prefer to learn from written summaries that are well-presented (well designed) and easy to find.

• If I am interested in gaining information about a topic, trying to get that via a game format involves figuring out how to play the game. The cost-benefit is completely hopeless.

• I found it infantile / This might be appropriate for children learning about an issue, but not adults. If I were trying to learn about an issue for work and did something like this, people would think I was goofing off.

• I think it's good to try to find new ways to present the news but I'm old-school enough that the traditional article-style news delivery works for me.

• If I were more interested in the topic I would have been more excited to read and participate. For real news purposes if the sources were actual people the journalist had previously interviewed that would be more interesting.

Comments – Version 5

• I didn't understand how to actually play the game at first, but after I got the hang of it, I thought it was really interesting.

• It took me a little while to figure out exactly how it worked. I think you could make a more intuitive game that wouldn't frustrate people as much, but that is still informative.

• I saw a game, not information. I wasn't interested in playing a game, the instructions were tedious, I didn't play and gained no information.

• Just tell me the information - I don't want to play a game to get it.

• There were too many view points and the site created a trivia feel, rather than presenting information in a way that could hold the reader's attention.

• The board game is not congruent with how people seek information. It's too hard, takes forever. I shouldn't have to work to be informed.

• The information the game presented was interesting, but I would not rely on it for my news. I would prefer a news story.

• The board game had the issues and facts about ethanol without all of the extra stuff that makes reading news articles unbearable for me.

• It was a bit boring at times when you landed on squares with nothing to do. It might be more fun if there were others you were playing against, but overall I liked it.

Game Testing

Usability testing

You just can’t win…

• It’s too simple • It’s too complex • Trivializes important

topic• Not interested in the

topic…and a game doesn’t help

• BUT if they stuck with it, they “got it”… and got something out of it

Experience analysis

• National Geographic / Discovery Channel Games– Darwin Game– Volcano Game– Titanic Dive

Feedback

• Who is it for?• Dismissive of

“flash games”• Reading the

rules • Education or

Entertainment• Potential for

Learning

What we know from eyetracking

• People don’t read – they skim– Implication for games:

presenting instructions

• People avoid ads – Implication for games:

business model

Challenges for News Gaming

• Presenting information "objectively"• Trivializing serious issues?• Turnaround / development time• Does it achieve the goal?• What IS the goal?• ROI• Terminology

– Game?– Interactive infographic?– Experiential storytelling?

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