Play the News: Making the News Interactive 1 Favorite 

“Play the News” is a web-based platform to bring interactive gaming elements to the online news media industry, and current event based classroom.  Impact Games has created an engine to drive “Interactive News” mini games and community features that change news consumption from passive reading to active engagement.  This ability to create a more compelling online news experience presents an opportunity to increase engagement metrics on many dimensions.  The Platform is composed of three major components: a web based publishing tool, the interactive game modules, and a community gaming and commenting structure.  While still a relatively short and casual experience the games allow for an experience that affects a deeper understanding of issues beyond the headlines.  Building on the internationally acclaimed PeaceMaker interface the games integrate broader contextual background information, multiple perspectives, and allow users to role-play critical players in the news.

The games are unique and easy for users to share and embed (like a youtube video).  The platform’s publishing tools allow quick, easy, and economical repackaging of existing content into an interactive layer in order to address breaking issues in real-time. The community profile and gaming elements promote tracking stories over time, broader content consumption, and engage users in the building of their own social political profile in relation to current events.  ImpactGames created content on a near daily basis from April to October 2008 in a “newsroom 2.0” format.  Through this period the company was able to track usage statistics that validated the engagement and value proposition.