comparitive experiencing of Newsgames with critical literature, films

Ian Bogost and his studio Persuasive Games took their take on Newsgames and started steadily being published in the OP-ED section of the NY times during May of last year. Bogost's jottings on the same and the first game called Food Import Folly are a classic precedent. Some others like Points of Entry have followed leading to crudely polemical and candidly refreshing long discussions on various aspects of 'games' and 'serious games' at Kotaku. Starting from a discussion of whether games need to provide fun or not, the discussion steadily diverges and forks into various concerns like how does one understand 'fun'? Can 'engagement' be concerned 'fun'? Gamers also seem to be acknowledging how subjective that 'fun ' derived from playing a game can turn out to be. While extreme positions definitely exist on both sides - some saying serious games are only for stupid pseudo-intellectuals while the other side at times coming close to being condescending as regards people who play violent games by terming them as largely unsophisticated.

Various other pondering(s) find their place - Do such games betray too much of a political message from their producers?, What does it mean now for them to be freely accessible to a large number of Internet users? What happens when one no longer requires specific set of skills to engage with games?

Perhaps the question which is really at stake is ...Do such games help in developing informed critical thinking? Does reading a comprehensive article in NY times about the immigration problem and playing a game over allocating merit-based green cards develop similar consciousness about challenging and probing issues? Maybe the question needs to be worded differently. Obviously, different media forms are experienced differently and one is certainly not asking for superficial effects-oriented studies. Yet, one could very well interrogate the comparative experiencing of these new set of serious games with say critical literature, or film on similar subjects. Certainly questions worth pondering upon as one thinks of persuasive games/serious games/edutainment/critical simulation/ideological videogames...