The New York Times Simulator Is Not About Understanding the Press, but Changing It
Luis Aguasvivas, Contributing Editor
Do you have what it takes to be a news editor?
The New York Times Simulator is a free-to-play game where you try your hand at being an editor for the New York Times. The game's creator is Paolo Pedercini (a/k/a Mollenindustria), an academic and game designer. On his website, Pedercini describes The New York Times Simulator as "…a meta news game about how corporate media manufacture consent for genocide, minimize police misconduct, and serve the ruling class." The game covers a controversial topic: the perceived bias in how large American news publications cover contentious political issues (policing, migration and the Palestinian struggle).
Pedercini is no stranger to making games about controversial topics. His entire body of work is full of political statements ranging from Queer Power, where players "make love according to their ever-changing desires,'' to The Best Amendment "an unofficial NRA [National Rifle Association] game." I interviewed Pedercini to find out what motivated him to make the game, what he hopes the game teaches us about how the news is covered, and if gaming design is a form of praxis.
The following interview was edited for clarity.
Luis Aguasvivas: What inspired you to make The New York Times Simulator?
Paolo Pedercini: I often make games commenting on current affairs. The War on Gaza feels like a major turning point, and not only for the Middle East. The war crimes and the suffering of civilians are painstakingly documented, a great majority of Americans across party lines disapprove of Israel's conduct, and yet the Western elites united in supporting Netanyahu's government and willing to compromise international law, human rights, academic freedom, and journalistic independence for it. In the US this is also likely to tip the balance in favor of Trump in the next presidential elections, with all the terrifying implications.
I think "liberal" [publications] like the New York Times or the Washington Post are what these elites read, and they play a big role in manufacturing the consent for this genocide.
The media coverage of this war may not be the most important issue in this conflict, but it's the one I felt I could turn into a game. It's hard to do satire and encourage role play in relation to such horrific events.
The main gameplay inspiration is The Republia Times, an indie game from 2012 by Lucas Pope. It's a kind of totalitarian propaganda game. Pope would later make the hit Papers, Please, set in the same pseudo-soviet universe. I essentially translated it to the modern days, gave it a real-time gameplay more reflective of the 24-hour news cycle, and made it about the "propaganda model" of Western corporate media - as described by [Noam] Chomsky and [Edward S.] Herman in Manufacturing Consent. It didn't make sense for it to be all about Gaza, so I expanded the scope to talk about how mainstream media cover crime and police brutality and serve corporate interests.
“Just Too Complex to Comprehend.” Screenshot by Luis Aguasvivas.
Luis Aguasvivas: How long did it take you to make The New York Times Simulator, and what was the research process like?
Paolo Pedercini: The game took me about 3 weeks to make. Consider that I'm a full-time professor and I make games in my spare time, but also that I've been making games for over 20 years.
For the research, I relied a lot on fair.org, a respectable news watchdog with many thematic articles. I included in the game a lot of actual New York Times edits from NYTDiff which is an automated system that keeps track of headline changes after the publication. I also used Google News to compare how different outlets covered the same event. When you "edit" a headline in the game you often switch between actual headlines from different outlets.
The game data is public and annotated, you can find it here.
Luis Aguasvivas: What do you hope to "reveal" with The New York Times Simulator?
Paolo Pedercini: In the New York Times Simulator the effects of your actions aren’t explicit. The variables affecting the approval levels are hidden, so you have to make educated guesses about their outcomes. It means that you have to interpret the headlines in relation to the interests of the police, Israel, and the capitalist class.
Whether you play the game "cynically" or try to do your best without getting fired, I’m hoping The New York Times Simulator can train players to quickly identify common spinning and framing techniques like the infamous passive voice (children "found dead" in Gaza), weasel words, or biased euphemisms ("officer-involved shooting").
I'm also trying to hint at the structural reasons for a pro-police, pro-Israel, or pro-corporate bias in news media. There's no evil conspiracy: it's just how corporate media functions. They depend on law enforcement and the government for their sources, they depend on ads, they are owned by wealthy investors. The people who are hired, who are retained, and who advance in that industry end up being organically selected according to specific values.
“The news are old.” Screenshot by Luis Aguasvivas.
Luis Aguasvivas: If a New York Times editor sees and plays your game, what do you want them to take away from it?
Paolo Pedercini: They'd probably think the game oversimplifies their job to the point of slander. They probably genuinely believe that when they write "Blast Hits Refugee Camp According to Hamas-Run Health Ministry" they are just being as precise and objective as they can. I don't expect them to be a receptive audience.
Luis Aguasvivas: In your opinion how has SEO chasing affected journalism and running a newspaper/news site?
Paolo Pedercini: I don't think many people look for news through search engines, but it's no secret that news media are beholden to algorithms designed by tech companies to maximize engagement. What concerns me the most is the divide between actual journalism increasingly put behind paywalls, and all these algorithmically-optimized content factories, influencers, and disinformation agents that are infinitely more accessible to the masses.
Luis Aguasvivas: Is making games praxis?
Paolo Pedercini: I guess? In the sense that games are not theory. They can't really be used to seek an absolute truth, and they are embedded in the processes of value-creation. So, making different games, or making games differently is not about understanding the world, but changing it.
