Gamification: Groundwork for the future of the CU Independent

At long last, the report is complete and published for public consumption on the Digital Media Test Kitchen website . . . now for you all to go read it!

This research project involved a specialized Qrank quiz game and how it could be used to help boost the readership of the CU Independent. While this report details the process of getting the game up and running, boosting usage of the game and in turn, the opportunities developing a core user base presents to the CUI, we hope to proceed forward with the research and discover if such a game can increase the news literacy level of the players.

We had hoped to further explore the game's abilities to boost usage and news literacy rates, but a litany of obstacles impeded us from making further progress in the first year of work. This is not to say time was lost or wasted. The report details the impediments we have overcome and lays out a succinct strategy for avoiding similar problems in the future.

Simply put, the CUI has three essential tasks to accomplish to make the use of this quiz game a success:

• Establish strong newsroom buy-in. An engaged editor and social media editor are essential for pushing the rest of the newsroom to help generate content suitable for the game. Content compels attention and without quality news content, the questions in the game will in turn fail to hold the user's attention.
• Market the game to users. We thoroughly proved the common knowledge that without a marketing effort, even the best of products will not sell.
• Market the game to sponsors. Obtaining advertisers to sponsor the game will require presenting the new game to the potential sponsors and explaining all of the new avenues available to promote their product or work. No potential sponsor should be assumed to understand how the new game works and the benefit it can provide to them.

Yes, this is absolutely a clear cut path to financial salvation for the CU Independent and an impressively informed level of news literacy for the readers of the publication. Or it might just be a fun game. Not like there's anything wrong with fun and games riding along in a news publication. Remember the good old days of doing the crossword puzzle in the Daily Lobo in class? . . . I'm sure none of you ever read the comics, either.

What do you think? If I told you that if you did the best on a quiz game about current events you'd win $20 to your favorite local watering hole, would you go read the headlines? What if you were simply able to rub the results in your (inferior) friend's face and show the world who was the master of news trivia?