MIT Press has put up the informational webpage for Newsgames, and the book should be appearing in the catalog and in books in print (and therefore at Amazon et al) soon enough. You can read the description on the MIT Press site, and I’ve also pasted it below.
The list price is $24.95, which I’d guess will translate into a discounted street price of around $17. No guarantees, but that’s what I’d expect you’ll pay on Amazon.com. And for the hardcover too!
Newsgames
Journalism at PlayIan Bogost, Simon Ferrari and Bobby Schweizer
6 x 9, 208 pp., 45 illus.
$24.95/£18.95 (CLOTH)
ISBN-10: 0-262-01487-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-01487-8
Journalism has embraced digital media in its struggle to survive. But most online journalism just translates existing practices to the Web: stories are written and edited as they are for print; video and audio features are produced as they would be for television and radio. The authors of Newsgames propose a new way of doing good journalism: videogames.
Videogames are native to computers rather than a digitized form of prior media. Games simulate how things work by constructing interactive models; journalism as game involves more than just revisiting old forms of news production. The book describes newsgames that can persuade, inform, and titillate; make information interactive; recreate a historical event; put news content into a puzzle; teach journalism; and build a community. Wired magazineâ??s game Cutthroat Capitalism, for example, explains the economics of Somali piracy by putting the player in command of a pirate ship, offering choices for hostage negotiation strategies. And Powerful Robotâ??s game September 12th offers a model for a short, quickly produced, and widely distributed editorial newsgame.
Videogames do not offer a panacea for the ills of contemporary news organizations. But if the industry embraces them as a viable method of doing journalismâ??not just an occasional treat for online readersâ??newsgames can make a valuable contribution.