We briefly mentioned this at Gamasutra, but it needs some underlining - Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games has announced a partnerhip with the New York Times "...in which they will be publishing newsgames we create on their op-ed page, as editorial content, not just as games."

As Bogost notes: "This is unprecedented, and at the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it represents another important shift in videogames as a medium. This is news/editorial in videogame form, rather than videogames trying to make news fun." [There's more on this whole subject from a recent Creative Loafing Atlanta story featuring Bogost and his fellow Georgia Tech issue-based gamers - and a snarky IGF judging reference!]

Of course, the only barrier for entry for this project is that you have to be a paid TimesSelect subscriber to play the game in question, 'Food Import Folly', detailed on the Persuasive Games page as having the player "...protect the country from contaminants in foreign food imports using extremely limited resources." But Persuasive has plenty of other games, including the 'Arcade Wire' ones for Shockwave, that are free to play.