Games can do good journalism. Here’s how to make them
Journalism is transitioning to digital media, but with a focus on traditional approaches adapted for the internet. Websites publish text, videos, and podcasts, resembling the formats of newspapers, TV, and radio. In contrast, games stand out as a distinct digital medium that offers interactivity. Newsgames exist at the intersection of journalism and videogames. They have a relatively young history, but games are part of the news for a century now, since the appearance of the first crossword puzzle in the New York Sunday World in 1913.
One of the key challenges faced by today’s digital journalism is building audience engagement and loyalty. While games can do good journalism, they also offer opportunities to captivate and educate audiences. They provide immersive experiences that can evoke empathy and curiosity. By gamifying stories, news outlets can facilitate two-way dialogue, strengthen brand loyalty, and enhance engagement. Because games engage audiences in ways that lengthy articles or short videos cannot achieve.
David Dowling, a professor at the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism, emphasizes, “We need to think about storytelling across all media and realize that news isn’t solely about information; it encompasses culture, context, and identity.” Gamification and online media contribute to a social and cultural space where identities are formed. Dowling argues that news media must understand how the structures for finding information are changing.
Here are some tips to assist journalists in developing newsgames:
1. Choose Compelling Story
The first step is selecting a compelling story that is relevant to society and easy to simplify into gameplay. While finding, consider these questions: Why is this story significant, and why you should be telling it? These answers can ease the process for you. Identify your expertise or areas of interest within journalism, then choose a story accordingly. Here are some existing news games to help you gain inspiration for your own story:
Since journalists aim to make an impact, consider the desired outcome as well. You can use Social Impact Navigator to determine you impact expectations.
2. Create User Personas
The impact of journalistic content depends on reaching the target audience. Therefore, it is important to identify your audience and construct user personas. Leverage existing knowledge and conduct research on your audience, potentially through focus groups, to understand their preferences, app usage, content interests, and frustrations. Creating these personas helps us delve into the complex world of our users, understanding their behaviors, needs, and desires. This knowledge can be woven into your storyline to make the final product more relevant and engaging. A user persona template is provided below:
3. Find Game Mechanic
Game mechanics define the very essence of gameplay. They serve as the guiding principles, the structural framework, and the interactive components that shape the player’s experience within the game environment. These mechanics lay down the formal rules that govern the game world, chart out the permissible actions for players, present challenges to overcome, and set the objectives to achieve. Think of them as the foundational building blocks upon which the entire gamification of non-game content is constructed. It’s through these mechanics that we breathe life into a game, infusing it with the rules, systems, and interactions that make it a captivating experience.
Newsgames are mini-games that are easier to play because of their basic and usually familiar mechanics that allow players to reach a high level of proficiency within a short period of time. However, their degree of difficulty may increase as the game progresses, to encourage the element of replaying and making player addicted to outperforming their previous score (or outcome) as well as to compete with other players. Because of their simplicity, players don’t lose much of their time in learning how to play the game and can focus on the central goal immediately. Take Pac-Man, for example: Players assume control of Pac-Man, whose objective is to consume all the dots within a confined maze while dodging four colorful ghosts.
4. Develop Analog Prototype
Maren Demant, co-founder at Berlin-based software and design studio Invisible Room, calls analog prototyping “secret sauce” for successful software development. It is like the art of transforming your abstract ideas into a tangible format. Analog prototype is an initial version of your project that presents the core functionality and design of the final product. To develop them, use materials like paper, buttons, or even Lego, depending on your project’s nature. They offer a means for others to experience your project, give feedback and ask questions that can draw your attention towards things that you missed. It is okay if you don’t have immediate answers for them. That’s part of the process.
5. Iterate
Incorporate the feedback and questions/answers gathered during analog testing into your game. Iteration is an ongoing process that continues until the final product is ready. Regular testing is essential to creating a polished product.
6. Develop Digital Prototype
Before transitioning to the development phase, create a digital prototype. Building a newsgame typically requires a team comprising a game designer, visual artist, and coder. However, if you possess skills in journalism, game design, visual art, and coding, you are a rare talent. For those without this combination, Twine, an interactive media tool, offers a solution. You can develop your script and determine outcomes for user choices in this software. For sourcing the assets such as characters and references to the story world, you can explore websites like Unity Asset Store, Itch.io and GitHub. Test your script, gather feedback from others, and use this prototype to engage potential partners and investors for the development phase. Meanwhile, put together a team. This can be a time consuming process so start it parallel. Having a team during this phase helps a lot as visual artists and game developers can put in their valuable input in the product which may evolve over time until the final product is ready. For game development, Unity and Unreal Engine are good options.
Zubair Ashraf is a journalist and aspiring game designer. He currently pursues a masters in digital narratives at the Internationale Filmschule Köln.
