Interactive storytelling: Merging games and journalism for impactful stories
One of the greatest challenges writers face is bringing their characters to life – capturing their inner thoughts, struggles, and choices in a way that feels genuine and relatable. With each word, we try to weave a story that allows readers to step into our characters’ shoes, experiencing life through their eyes. After all, what better way is there to invite open-mindedness and empathy than allowing someone to walk a mile in another’s shoes?
As the public conversation about refugees heated up in 2018, with misinformation circulating wildly, ProPublica, Playmatics and WNYC launched The Waiting Game – an interactive web-based game that invited the US public to experience the hardships refugees and asylum seekers endure. From the moment they choose to flee their countries, to the moment they are granted asylum status, the game takes us through their journey in a first-person perspective. Click by click, screen by screen, the game immerses you into their surroundings, inner monologues, and struggles, and leads you through long stretches of waiting, frustration and anxiety. The game is daring you to give up every step of the way and challenging you to recognise the feelings of danger and hopelessness that many asylums seekers face.
Source: The Waiting Game, ProPublica and WNYC, https://projects.propublica.org/asylum/
In The Waiting Game, each story and scenario has been crafted through interviews with people and families seeking asylum in the US; as well as lawyers, doctors and other professionals involved in the process. The game uses sound, text and images to build an overwhelmingly precise yet harrowing experience.
This remains one of the best examples on how we can get through to people using a tactic that never fails to garner our attention – games.
Serious games and gamification in journalism
Games are structured forms of play designed to mentally, and often physically, stimulate the players, keeping them engaged and entertained. Each game has certain elements, such as goals, rules, challenges and feedback loops that create a sense of progression and accomplishment.
The Waiting Game is part of a relatively new wave of using serious games – video games or simulation whose main goal is not entertainment but education, in journalism. Their goal is to attract our attention and provide opportunities for immersive storytelling.
Gamification, not to be confused with serious games, refers to the practice of using game-design elements or mechanics and applying them in different non-game situations and contexts. The aim of gamification is to again encourage engagement but also to generate loyalty, through a sense of achievement and community. This is achieved by encouraging player interaction with a lange number of bite-sized pieces of content over a longer period of time.
When talking about gamification in non-game contexts, we often refer to applying some or all PBL (points, badges and leaderboard) mechanics into a given system. In those cases, points are used to track progress, provide initial feedback and reward the activities taken. Badges feed on the sense of accomplishment and symbolise achievement, while leaderboards lean into our innate drive for competition. Think about Duolingo for example, a language learning app that has mastered the implementation of traditional video game mechanics. All sections of its interface and interactions with its users are designed to keep us engaged and striving for more.
5) Gamification: Duolingo uses a lot of traditional video game mechanics: XP, streaks, collectibles, leaderboards etc 🕹
Leaderboards increased time spent learning on Duolingo ~20%. >50% of their DAUs have streaks longer than 1 week, and ~1M users have streaks longer than 1 year pic.twitter.com/sB6OpMQSJC
— ✳️ nibnalin on daimo (@nibnalin) September 15, 2021
Of course, there are many other ways we can incorporate game elements in journalism, and most of them come down to interactivity and agency of the reader or viewer.
When I was young, my grandfather and I had a weekend ritual. Early in the morning, he would buy newspapers and make us some coffee and tea. I would sit in my spot on the couch, still in pyjamas, sipping tea and tackling the crossword puzzle. The simple challenge of finding the right word to fit into the allotted boxes kept us both hooked. This is a perfect example of old-school serious games – crosswords, puzzles, and word games that have long been a staple of newspapers.
Today, integration of serious games and gamification in journalism can range from those traditional puzzles (is anyone else here a Wordle fan?) to more interactive forms such as voting polls, quizzes or other mechanics that invite reader participation and provide feedback. Just think of all those BuzzFeed quizzes, which you must have tried at least once. Who could resist finding out which Friends character they are most like?
Of course, it can also take shape as more complex, non-linear storytelling where readers try out and test different scenarios. In these cases, as we move through the story at our own pace, each decision we make impacts what happens to us next. By engaging with content in this way we are not consuming it, but experiencing and shaping it firsthand.
The benefits of interactive educational content
Using interactive elements in journalism often has a profound impact.
Interactive content increases reader engagement and helps our stories reach wider audiences. When the Financial Times launched The Uber Game in 2022, another serious game simulating a day in the life of a full-time Uber driver, it had the goal of letting their readers experience for themselves what it means to earn a living in the gig economy. The game was designed to let players experience the benefits, costs and sacrifices associated with being an Uber driver. The result? One of the most read and most interacted with stories the Financial Times published that year.
Game elements allow us to take complex topics and transform them into something more digestible and entertaining, while still allowing us to deliver an important message.
Source: The Uber Game, Financial Times, https://ig.ft.com/uber-game/
For many publishers, adding a serious game or gamification to their content also means reaching younger and more tech-savvy audiences. Ways in which interactive content can be presented are evolving with technology which is, in many cases, first adopted by younger generations. These forms of content are particularly suited for those who prefer mobile, on demand and immersive experiences.
Aside from ensuring a wider reach and engagement for their audiences, media organisations have another key motive in implementing these elements to media content – monetisation. Take, for example, the tradition my grandfather and I started back in the ‘90s. I am now a devoted player and subscriber of the NYT Games mobile app – a digital extension of that same experience. It’s funny to think how the New York Times was the last US media outlet to add the crossword puzzle to its paper, referring to it as “a primitive sort of mental exercise” at the time. Fast forward to today, and the NYT Games app is a focal point of their business strategy. It presents a “funnel” for reader acquisition as newspaper subscriptions dwindle.
The New York Times is now a gaming company on the basis of customer time spent
(From ValueAct, Data estimated by Yipit, Source: https://t.co/hdSkS5oF25) pic.twitter.com/vEfickAyup
— Matthew Ball (@ballmatthew) March 31, 2024
Recognising this trend, other global media houses such as The Telegraph and The Guardian are following suit by building their own puzzle offerings.
Interactive content provides higher visibility, engagement and loyalty among users, which benefits both editorial and advertising teams. This increase in performance impacts our options for raising funds – through ad placements, sponsored content, digital subscriptions, advertorials, or other avenues that allow us to create interactive content for others.
Best practices for implementing gamification and serious games in media
Successful examples of serious games and gamification in news media share three key elements: a deep understanding of the audience, simplicity of use, and a foundation of quality journalism.
Know your audience (and your story)
Understanding your audience, from the way they consume news to how they interact with the world, is key for making sure the stories we tell are resonating. The same goes for implementing interactive pieces of content.
Not all stories need to be turned into a game. So, first make sure to ask yourself – is this topic fit for this type of content? For Sarah-Grace Mankarious at CNN, the answer was yes.
Remember the infamous 2021 Suez Canal obstruction? During those six days, the whole world looked at videos and satellite images with incomprehension. Across social media, users without any nautical experience whatsoever, confidently asserted that this would never have happened with them at the helm- not in a million years.
So, Mankarious wanted to put us to a test through a simple Steer through the Suez Canal interactive web simulation, made in just three days. Using your keyboard, you are tasked with guiding the boat through the narrow Suez passage, probably not expecting a powerful and unexpected blast of wind to cause you to get stuck, just as it happened in real life.
Source: Steer through the Suez Canal, CNN, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/03/cnnix-steership/
Readers on average spent 7 minutes on the page, trying to make it through the canal, making this one of the most successful CNN features.
Keep it simple (and intuitive)
Implementing game mechanics can but does not have to be complicated or expensive. For example, one of the ways media publishers can encourage reader participation and discourage trolling or spamming is to add gamification elements to the comment section. Adding features like an upvote/downvote option, badges for top commenters or even leaderboards for the most active users, can all promote meaningful interaction and community engagement.
When we talk about non-linear storytelling and interactive content, it can be easy to refer to the idea of mobile games and costly web applications. Admittedly, a good chunk of this article focuses on two such examples. However, these formats and technologies are not the be all and end all when it comes to applying serious games and gamification to journalism.
Let’s take the example of scrollytelling – articles or content pages that unravel different pieces of content as you scroll through, from videos to quotes and graphs. This form allows writers to break down complex information into smaller, more manageable pieces, and present them in a way that will encourage discovery. The page itself can be made simple or complex, depending on media resources.
Non-linear storytelling can also take the form of interactive videos that are providing the agency and participation the audience requires to feel engaged. VidiVaka is a North Macedonia based media company that creates precisely this type of content and with great success. For example, the team’s brand room created an interactive video experience about Lake Ohrid for a travel agency, Fibula Tours. The video offered an interactive first-person experience, inviting you to explore everything Lake Ohrid has to offer by choosing where you want to go, and what you want to see next.
Source: Lake Ohrid – an interactive experience, Vidi Vaka and Fibula, https://studio.vidivaka.mk/ohrid-lake-with-fibula
What is true for all types of interactive content is that in order for our audience to engage with our content the game mechanics and elements have to be intuitive. Experimenting with different content forms and technologies is great, as long as the experience you create is easy to move though and engage with.
Do your research
There are always ethical considerations we have to keep in mind. One of the main concerns some professionals raise about using serious games in journalism is it being used to promote sensationalism or the oversimplification of serious topics. However, the best examples of using serious games in journalism are rooted in solid research, ensuring that they make a meaningful impact without sacrificing depth or accuracy.
In the case of The Uber Game, the team wanted to explore ways to “help people emotionally understand a subject”. In creating the game, the team started with reporting, as they would if they were working on a written article. They conducted interviews, collected stories and anecdotes in order to understand the lives of Uber drivers better. They also familiarised themselves with the Uber app and collected data that served as key inputs for the simulation such as average fares per hour, average number of rides per hour, car rental costs and fuel costs.. The game’s interface closely mirrored Uber’s own app which added to the sense of realism and familiarity.
The result was a highly relevant game that had an impressive 70% completion rate, with most players finishing the game once they started. On average, readers spend 20 minutes playing the game, which is much longer than what is usually spent on a Financial Times article.
Games can be serious and they are here to stay
Interactive content does more than just entertain – it captivates. Our attention is pulled in so many directions – social media, streaming services, messaging apps that even when we ought to relax, we find ourselves reaching for our phones or smart devices. In such a media landscape, serious games and gamification can provide a unique advantage for media organisations and give them a fighting chance to stand out.
Implementing serious games into news stories sparks our curiosity, encouraging readers to think critically and explore topics in greater depth. In Gen Z terms, it gives us the “main character energy” and turns us from passive consumers to active explorers who directly engage with the content. Gamifying our content or news portals, on the other hand, help us reward those readers whose actions provide value to the news portal. This is a powerful tool to build an engaged and loyal audience, but also a sense of community between the readers themselves.
Most importantly, new technologies, especially tools that automate a good chunk of the content creation process, are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Interactive content can now be made in much less time than before, allowing you to play around with different formats and technologies. Let’s do precisely that – play!
