One More Brick in the Wall

Ian Bogost’s Persuasive Games has partnered with the New York Times to create a series of gamevertorials (sic) for the Time’s OpEd page. In Food Import Folly, which appeared last week, you “Take the role of the FDA inspectors in a world of increasingly numerous food imports and increasingly unmanageable risk. Your charge: try to protect the country from contaminants in foreign food imports using extremely limited resources.” Though not the first-ever editorial game, the fact that the NY Times has adopted the form is further proof that games are becoming an integral part of today’s media environment and shows a strong vote of confidence in the power of games to inform and influence public opinion.