Newsgames : journalism at play / Ian Bogost, Simon Ferrari, and Bobby Schweizer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Journalism has embraced digital media in its struggle to survive. But most online journalism just translates existing practices to the Web: stories are written and edited as they are for print; video and audio features are produced as they would be for television and radio. The authors of "Newsgames" propose a new way of doing good journalism: videogames. Videogames are native to computers rather than a digitized form of prior media. Games simulate how things work by constructing interacting models; journalism as game involves more than just revisiting old forms of news production. Wired magazine's game "Cutthroat Capitalism," for example, explains the economics of Somali piracy by putting the player in command of a pirate ship, offering choices for hostage negotiation strategies. And Powerful Robot's game "September 12th" offers a model for a short, quickly produced, and widely distributed editorial newsgame. Videogames do not offer a panacea for the ills of contemporary news organizations. But if the industry embraces them as a viable method of doing journalism - not just an occasional treat for online readers - newsgames can make a valuable contribution."--Back cover.