I'm Building A Video Game To Fight Fake News Before The Next Election

My name is Jay McGregor and I'm an investigative journalist for journalism startup, Point. I'm building a video game - called Misinformer - to fight fake news because we're drowning in an ocean of online bullshit.

Misinformer puts the players in the shoes of a moderator for a government-run forum called Conversely. Every citizen has to do this, it's considered part of their national service. But when political spam starts turning up in a thread about gardening, the player has to track down the culprits before the player is blamed for *another* election disaster.

After some good leads, wrong turns and high-stakes sting operations - the story ultimately leads to some unlikely bad actors.

There is a range of investigative tools - that we use as journalists in the real world - which are core to cracking the conspiracy in Misinformer. To name a few (but not all), players can use; image analysis (for debunking viral pictures), sting operations, bot trend analysis, court record searches and freedom of information requests to help them crack the conspiracy.

But there are rules. Rules that can lead to different endings. If you do things properly and ethically, you get the scoop, bring down the bad guys and save democracy.

But If you cut corners, then the game ends very badly for you...

Here's the twist: this is only one of many stories players can play in the game. Every time we publish a new report on Point, we'll fictionalise it and turn it into a downloadable update for the game. Players will always get to play a version of the latest news.

The game has been built to give people the skills and knowledge of how to spot - and investigative - misinformation they see online. I hope that after playing one or two episodes, people will feel well equipped to call out the viral fake news that sometimes dominates our feeds.

We launched Misinformer on Kickstarter last week and we've got some one-off tiers for people who pledge. If you want to be *in* the game, or buy a handful of discounted story updates, then check out the Kickstarter before they all go.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/point/misinformer-a-detective-game-based-on-real-journalism?ref=4io4zq

More info: kickstarter.com