Idea Lab

Old and Young Playing a Video Game

by Paul Grabowicz
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Can a virtual world bring together young and old people to explore a community's history in a shared video game experience? This is a question we're pondering in the wake of some user testing of our Remembering 7th Street video game. We previously showed a video version of our game world to people who remembered Oakland's 7th Street blues and jazz club scene from the 1940s and 1950s, and were surprised by their generally positive reaction to the virtual re-creation of what they had actually lived. Several also said they hoped the game would help young people in Oakland learn...

• April 20, 2008
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Why Journalists Should Develop Video Games

by Paul Grabowicz
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

When I describe our Remembering 7th Street video game project to journalists, I often get a puzzled look. Why is a journalism school doing a video game? How does video game storytelling square with the craft of journalism or the mission of news organizations? Aren't video games about entertainment, not news? The pat answer to such questions is that kids are increasingly using game platforms to consume information, and news organizations need to embrace games if they're going to reach young people. For me personally, a video game also was a way to tell a more engaging story about the...

• February 6, 2008
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Video Games: Moving Between Virtual and Real

by Paul Grabowicz
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Should virtual world video games offer a parallel game experience in the real world? This is something we've discussed adding to our Remembering 7th Street video game project, possibly using GPS devices, such as GPS-enabled cellphones. Our game currently exists entirely inside a virtual world - a re-creation of the jazz and blues club scene on Oakland's 7th Street in the 1940s and 1950s. Game play is confined to that virtual world, with the player exploring the jazz and blues clubs and engaging in game-play quests to learn about the history of 7th Street and its music. Adding a GPS-component...

• December 28, 2007
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Common Lessons Learned about Video Games

by Paul Grabowicz
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

At a video games seminar last month at MIT sponsored by the Knight Foundation, several of the MIT folks talked about lessons learned from games they developed that resonated with our Remembering 7th Street jazz and blues clubs project. One of the games MIT produced is Revolution, a video game recreation of historic events in colonial Williamsburg. You can read more about it on the blog of Henry Jenkins, director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. There were a number of parallels with our game: - While the Revolution game is designed to be educational, the designers believe "much...

• December 2, 2007
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Making a Video Game Educational and Entertaining

by Paul Grabowicz
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I mentioned in my last post how we're balancing the sometimes conflicting demands of education and entertainment in our Remembering 7th Street video game, especially deciding how much explanatory text should be included in the game. Here's a note from Becca MacLaren, one of the journalism students working on the game, about our discussions: One puzzle we're trying to solve in our Remembering 7th Street video game project is how to reach as broad an audience as possible - from people who lived in the neighborhood in the 1940s and '50s to teenagers who know very little about West Oakland's...

• November 17, 2007
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