Earlier this year, I received an email from Positech, the developer of the political simulation game Democracy 2. The email detailed the additions and changes in a software patch to the game. I reproduce the notice below:
Positech Games, indie developers of political strategy game 'Democracy' have released version 1.23 of the game today. Democracy was the recent winner of the title 'Simulation Game of the year 2008' in the GameTunnel.com indie game awards. The game puts the player in control of a simulated 'virtual country' which they run as president or prime minister. This latest patch changes a number of the simulation variables to improve game balance, and also introduces a new policy (Space program!) and a new event (Pirates capture oil tanker). The full list of changes in this patch is here:
- Married Tax Allowance now makes parents happier
- University grants make parents happier
- Increased probability of prison riot event
- Reduced positive effects of legal aid policy
- Bailing out company dilemma now costs money
- Creationism policy now affects technological backwater and technological advantage situations
- Oil prices now affect the chances of the petrol protests situation
- Reduced effectiveness of free buss passes for retired people
- New Space Program policy.
- New Pirates Attacking Oil tanker event.
- Liberals are now angered slightly by citizenship tests
- Stem cell research now boosts lifespan
As you can see, the list of changes matches up quite nicely with a number of recent events. The game, which is designed to simulate a public's response to policy changes in a society, comes equipped with a wide range of quite particular political opinions. Play is accomplished by changing policies and watching the public's reaction to those changes.
The additions of patch 1.23 listed above cover both policy options ("Bailing out company dilemma now costs money") and public responses ("Liberals are now angered slightly by citizenship tests"). Their addition to the game is possible because Democracy 2 operates at such a high level--it is a game about the bidirectional causal connections between general types of policies and public interests. It is a game about democracy at a macroscopic level.
When we think about the possible uses of games in journalism, issues of feasibility quickly come to the fore. As we have discussed here before, it often seems infeasible to create videogames fast enough to cover breaking news--or even longer-term news. Starting from scratch is hard.
But a game like Democracy 2 doesn't have to start from scratch; elements can be added to the game over time and with relative ease. It is a platform for simulating democracy.
The idea of newsgame platforms has promise for journalistic application. Instead of creating a bunch of games with short life spans, or larger games whose relevance might not outlast the time it takes for development, perhaps journalists might consider creating larger, more ongoing platforms into which current events could be funneled as settings, scenarios, or variables.
Another benefit of a newsgame platform is creative accessibility; Democracy 2 ships with a folder full of spreadsheet files that its players can access and update. The same could be true for newspaper readers, or for journalists and editors themselves.
But even if we imagine the possibility of a newsgame platform, there are trade-offs and challenges to consider.
For one part, it is unclear if a social platform could give citizens a perspective on decisions in their own lives. Like many games, Democracy 2 is a game about power rather than everyday life; it offers a view of a society from the role of its leader--and a leader with impressive, unchecked power at that. Ordinary people need the opposite view, that of the citizen.
For another part, platforms necessarily rise to a level of abstraction not normally used in news media. Democracy 2 offers a perfect example of this phenomenon. The game abstracts government to public polling and slider-based policy-making. The relationships between decisions are depicted via screens of abstract line-connecters, rather than told through stories of specific experiences. The result may be difficult for many people to understand or enjoy.
But these challenges also suggest unmet opportunities in news-making more generally. A story about Joe Average's foreclosure woes might personalize a problem, but it doesn't explain the complex dynamics that produce that result. Perhaps one of the future roles of journalism involves analyzing and explaining the world at a much higher level than the event or the story.
In short, a newsgame platform would not focus on presenting the news, but on presenting the system in which news takes place--whether that system is a country, a city, a business sector, or some other arena. It would show the complexity of relations in such a system and synthesize how changes and alterations in one part of that system might have unexpected effects in another.
One strong candidate for platformization are localities. Cities and regions, including state governments, are at particular risk of coverage loss as newspapers downsize or shut down. Is it possible that a city or local region could serve as the context of a newsgame platform. The details of such an idea are, of course, many--a topic we'll take up in the future.
Leave a comment