Newsgames: Procedural Rhetoric Meets Political Cartoons

This paper, presented at DiGRA 2009 by Mike Treanor and Michael Mateas of UC Santa Cruz, argues that newsgames, video games responding to current events, can be understood most productively through a comparison with political cartoons. The authors take Gonzalo Frasca's definition of a newsgame as "simulation meets political cartoon" as a starting point and seek to refine the term, which they observe has been applied loosely to many forms of serious or nonfiction games. Drawing on Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric, they distinguish between Social Comment and Political cartoon categories and argue that the strongest newsgames communicate editorial stances through their rules and gameplay rather than through imagery alone.

The analysis examines a range of examples, including So you think you can drive, Mel?, Kabul Kaboom, September 12th, Bacteria Salad, and Madrid. Kabul Kaboom is presented as a model of procedural rhetoric of failure, in which the player inevitably loses, expressing a critique of US foreign policy. Bacteria Salad is characterized as the video game equivalent of the written editorial because of its nuanced, detailed argument, while Madrid illustrates how conflicting procedural messages can obscure a game's intended meaning. The authors also identify criteria for an ideal newsgame, including topical relevance, quick comprehensibility, persuasive intent, and the identification of a problem and implied solution.

The paper's evidence is qualitative and based on close readings of selected games rather than a survey or large dataset. The authors conclude that newsgames remain rare and underdeveloped, and they propose automated game generation as a future route to producing timely, persuasive newsgames.