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The spread of “news games”

CNET recently published this interesting article about news games — simple online games that are designed to promote or simply riff off of a current news topic (like the spread of swine flu.) The article cites several examples, including Swinefighter, a game in which players are tasked with killing off viruses within 20 seconds. Swinefighter incorporates a running total of all the viruses killed by everyone who has played the game, so at the time CNET published it’s article, we know that 14.5 million virtual viruses have been wiped out by players.

This begs the question: why isn’t the government using games like these to educate the public? It doesn’t cost much to develop a simple online flash game, and the cost certainly pales in comparison to the harms caused by a public that is both panicked by and undereducated about pandemic-related issues. Or in the words of the article: “It’s a shame the innovation (of providing CDC advice about swine flu in Swinefighters) was left to two entrepreneurs.”

May 17th, 2009 | Category: Society & Culture, Training & Education | Subscribe to comments | You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed

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