On a panel on “Journalism, Games, and Civic Engagement,” Asi Burak of Impact Games (Peacemaker) suggests the following tags for interactive media, which he distinguishes from “games”:
- Editorial short-form — Ian Bogost’s “Persuasive Games” (I’m curious what Ian thinks of this tag)
- Advocacy short-form — Darfur is Dying, Starbucks’ environment game
- Long-form advocacy — Peacemaker, A Force More Powerful — goal is to come out with the realization, “It’s more complex than I thought”
- Community interaction — World without Oil
Other possible terms: “Experiential storytelling,” “Interactive infographic”? One audience member points out that games usually have meaningful choice, a magic circle, a win state that some of these examples do not.
I’m not sure I would put A Force More Powerful in the “Advocacy” camp since its main focus is to teach strategy (not just demonstrate complexity), but as Asi points out, both that title and Peacemaker have a “bias for peace” built into the design. (In AFMP, demonstrations that go violent is a Bad Thing).
Another journalism game: Joellen Easton of American Public Media demonstrated Budget Hero, which allows players to set their own goals through selecting a “badge” (e.g. national security, universal health care). It’s particularly interesting to me that these goals (and thus, the underlying values) cannot all be met, which for me is a criterion for a “meaningful choice.”
APM is also finding that players of Budget Hero are significantly younger than consumers of other public media: 53% are 18-35.
Why a game: Player experiences tension between own assumptions and the facts built into the game (assuming vetted facts are correct) — Joellen. Limitations of traditional media that lack context, cause-effect — Asi.