Newsgames Come to New York Times

Ian Bogost, founder of Persuasive Games, has announced that the New York Times will begin publishing a series of the studio’s “newgames.” Newsgames were conceived as a cross between a video game and a political cartoon, dealing with current issues. In recent years, they’ve found considerable success on AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com. Bogost hopes that having the games added to their website will allow the games to reach ordinary people and not just gamers. The games will be featured in the op-ed page of the website as editorial content, meaning they are being considered actual content on the site; meant to inform and not just make the news fun. The first game to hit the site will be Food Import Folly (shown above), which takes a stab at the FDA’s extremely limited inspection capabilities on food imports. Bogost hopes that more of their games (such as Airport Security, Oil God, Bacteria Salad, and Xtreme Xmas Shopping) will soon also be available on the site.