Another effective way of increasing participation in and time spent at an online news site is adding news-related games.

Games by definition are more engaging for people, and well designed games can lead people to spend hours of their time playing them online.  Games are particularly popular with young people, an age group many news organizations are struggling to attract as readers or viewers.

On the general popularity of video games, see the Entertainment Software Association's Industry Facts section of its website.

Many news organizations have experimented with adding games to their websites. One of the early classics was MSNBC.com's baggage screening game that showed people what it was like to screen baggage at airport security checkpoints.

At the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism we developed Remembering 7th Street, an online virtual world and video game that re-created Oakland's 7th Street blues and jazz club scene from the 1940s and 1950s so people could experience this important part of the city's cultural heritage.

For more examples of online games developed by news organizations, see this list.