In order to illustrate the possibilities of stock market newsgame, we have looked at three different types of game. The first, Chartgame.com, is unique in that it hypothesizes that "technical analysis" can be used to predict a stock--pulling in historical data of actual companies on the market while asking the player to buy or sell shares when the only supporting information they have is a graph. The second, Inside Trader, is an iPhone game that's more editorial than newsgame, but reveals some of the underbelly of the stock market and the SEC. Lastly, Black Monday was a DOS game from 1987 which sought to illustrate the stock market collapse from that year.

The designer of Chartgame.com opens with the following note: "Personally, I'm trying to figure out, for my own purposes, how much merit there is to technical analysis. So I decided to build a something where people who profess to be skilled at technical analysis can test their skills." Chartgame.com begins each round by pulling a company and timeframe from a database and graphing its stock fluctuations over a set period of time. But instead of revealing this information, it is hidden away such that the only information provided to the player is change over time. 

The goal is to look at the graph and predict the best periods to buy and sell the stock. You're given a five year history and then play for another three years. As somebody who knows literally nothing about stock trading, the extra technical analysis functions provided next to the graph (Relative Strength Index, the Bollinger band, moving averages, etc.) had little value to me. What I found interesting about this game is its erasure of context. Because there are no years given, you cannot make predictions based on a general knowledge of the market's ups and downs. It is both frustrating and liberating--the desire to frame my decisions was quashed by the ease of the educated guess. 

Inside Trader, an iPhone application by Jeff McFadden is an editorial look at the role of inside trading. The player is positioned as someone with a tipster at their disposal--someone with inside knowledge on what will occur in the next round of play. The player has six fictional companies to choose from, buying and selling shares over the course of either 15, 30, or 60 days. Tips are displayed on-screen whether you plan on using it or not. "Gurgle will be UP 59% tomorrow," writes the tipster. The player can choose to take this tip and move their money into Gurgle, but doing so raises the SEC's suspicion. Too many good moves in a row sets off the alarms and it's gameover. 

However, it is possible to reduce your SEC meter by paying your lawyer (at increasing cost) to employ negating tactics: blaming the competition, burning the books, and lobbying congress. These don't always work, but when they do the SEC threat meter drops and you can continue taking insider tips. There are actually a couple other ways you can play the game. It's possible to play it without taking any tips, though this means never acting on the company whose tip is being shown. Regardless, the SEC will always become suspicious of your activity at some point, though it is possible to minimize this. Insider Trader is an interesting editorial on the process, though its reductionist system means its easier to dismiss than perhaps a more complicated game. 

Black Monday is a DOS game that simulates the lead-up to the stock market crash of 1987. Playable by 1-6 people, players take turns borrowing money, buying and selling shares, and paying off debts all while awaiting the impending crash of the stock market. This crash comes at a random point in the latter half of the game, so the players are working to make as much money as possible so that they can rebound from the crash, pay off any debts, and finish the game with the highest net worth. Company's stock prices rise and fall, split, and also go bankrupt. Players can also influence a company's stocks by buying large numbers of shares. There is also a graphing feature which will show the history of the stock (though all the people that played it in the project tended to ignore this feature). 

At the close of day, the players watch a news ticker with stories on the different companies, although during the course of a few play-throughs it is unclear that the stories have any actual effect on the market. What Black Monday does best is capture the tenor of economic climate in 1987. Traders are making huge amounts of money, stocks suddenly start failing, and then the entire market collapses. Of course we have the historical perspective of the impending doom, but by randomizing the round in which the crash takes place, you can still be caught off-guard. For this reason I think it is the most like a newsgame--participating in the simulation unfolds the story. Though we see it as historically based, the fact that it was made in 1987 right after the stock market crashed is actually quite remarkable. 

If we consider a stock-market game a platform whose data can be updated and whose rules can be altered based on current events, perhaps running this sort of simulation be beneficial to understanding market dynamics and the state of the economy.