Play the News

[dauer]

Hey all.

I recently joined the beta for a game called Play the News. I have a feeling it may be of interest to at least some of the people on the forum. If you know a little bit about fantasy sports leagues, you'll recognize the format.

It's by the guys who did Peacemaker: ImpactGames

The website is http://www.playthenewsgame.com/ but it won't be accessible to the public until it leaves beta. When that happens I'll update this thread.

Basically, each day you get one or two news events that come up. You get to read some background information about what's going on and see how different involved factions feel about the situation. Then you get to play as at least one involved party, often multiple parties that are in conflict. First you choose what you would do and see the projected reactions of the involved factions. Then you predict what the party you're currently playing as will actually do.

I don't want to go into more than that because it's still in beta (even though there was no non-disclosure agreement) but I'm finding it's a helpful way to think more critically about the news while remaining fun and taking very little time to participate in. Will bump this thread when it goes public.

-- Dauer

[gp1628]

Interesting.
Ive worked for a number of game companies and get involved in beta's all the time. I was about to post on a game that I thought people here might be interested in also.

Definetly bump when this goes public please. (do they have a distributor yet? Im guessing they do)

[dauer]

Hey GP.

I'm guessing they do too, although I think their last game may have been available as a download only and this current game is web-based. As serious games go, their ME peace title attracted a lot of attention for them. A while back I made a thread about it here:

Serious Gaming: Can you bring peace to the middle east?

It seems like right now what they're really looking for is groups that might be interested in linking to them e.g. news sources as well as ways that the game can be applied for the education both of teens and adults.

[gp1628]

Originally Posted by dauer

It seems like right now what they're really looking for is groups that might be interested in linking to them e.g. news sources as well as ways that the game can be applied for the education both of teens and adults.

Well if they are ever interested in marketing it at a mid-level let me know. Particularly that previous game might have worked out well.

[dauer]

I just received an e-mail notification that Play the News has left closed beta. From the e-mail:

...If you (like us) are enjoying active participation in the news, and
think others will too, please help us spread the word. Many of you
have asked if you could share your log-in with others or could invite
others into the community, and now is the time. We added a Share This
Game feature, so just like a YouTube video, anyone can embed our
Flash games into their personal blogs or websites, as well as link to
them from popular social networking and news aggregation sites (e.g.
Digg, Facebook, Google).

The site is free of charge to end-users. We are excited to let you
know that two top-tier media partners are planning to launch
PlayTheNews on their site in the following weeks bringing even more
content to the community...

...Major features introduced recently:

1. A new game flow with clear distinction between opinion vote and
prediction.

2. A new Game Stats page with real-time results on all games.

3. Refined ranking system, especially for prediction rating.

4. The ability to fully review and play closed games...

I think this is something a lot of people from this site would enjoy. Unfortunately the embedding that they have is not setup for phpbb yet (it is setup for html but this is a link the the game's site:

Impact Games - Play the News