What is a newsgame?

For a class, I was assigned the task of editing a Wikipedia page. Looking for something related to this blog, I found a possibly dated definition of newsgames on the page about Serious Games.

On the page, the author(s) had begun a list of types of games that would fit into the serious game category. This list includes things like advergaming and edutainment, and the list itself consists of a rather controversial taxonomy as I’ve seen discussions on quite a few of the terms themselves.

The definition for newsgames left me wanting as they were defined this way:

These games discuss, in a direct way, political or geopolitical problems. Examples include ”September 12th”

I’m doubtful of my own ability to arrive at an ideal definition any time soon, but I really felt this one was too narrow. Newsgames can deal with much more than political or geopolitical problems, just as news delivered through other media. So, here’s my attempt to broaden the definition a bit to be more consistent with at least a generic definition of news:

Journalistic games that report on recent events or deliver an editorial comment

I like it so far, but it needs to be bounced off the crowd. There will probably be exceptions to this that still count as a newsgame. Also, the discussion of whether a clean definition needs to be realized at this point could also be worthwhile.

I do think this does begin to separate newsgames from advergames and tabloid games. A newsgame could stray into the territory of either of these and I plan on committing an entire post to the gray areas.