Last week I had this crazy idea of making a reporting/video game company that made video games based off of top news stories. As crazy as it sounds I think it's a great idea and I'm going to pursue it as my semester project. This class is all about taking risks, and this idea seems as risky as you can get.
To review, my idea was to make a video game company dedicated to making games based off of top news stories. I don't know what the news appetite among gamers is, but I'm sure this would be an effective method to educate them more about journalism and important current events. In a way it's the opposite of video game journalism; there would be video game developers making games based off journalism.
So what do I have to do to make this happen?
Well to start, I think the games would be smaller projects than big-budget games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto, and I see them being released on the iOS app store and Google Play. It's cheaper to make games on this platform and mobile devices are quickly becoming gaming consoles of their own. If the company did this, it would be able to produce content quickly and effectively while reducing costs.
In terms of employees, it would consist of both reporters and game developers. If a game based off of a top news story is to exist, it would have to have excellent narrative detail and no factual errors. The reporters would get this information and sit down with the developers to discuss how they could make it work. The reporters would also have to have knowledge about video games so they could contribute to the development process. To make this project more journalism-esque, I think it would be good for the company to have a website or blog to write actual news stories on. This way the company's followers could play the games and read the stories.
The only thing I'm really concerned about is ethics. Some stories are obviously not appropriate to make games about (Boston Marathon bombings, Connecticut shootings), but where do you draw the line? This is something that requires some serious conversations.
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