Gaming the System: Case Study in Investigative Journalism and Playful Interactive Narrative Design to Explain Systemic Bias in Immigration Policy

Drawing from the theoretical underpinnings of prior work in interactive narratives to explain complexity, playable explanations, and newsgames this work aims to expand the impact and accessibility of comprehensive investigate journalism to a wide audience of North, Central and South Americans. The goal was to apply the benefits of ludic interactive narratives to explain the complexities and systemic biases in the United States immigration system for differing immigration scenarios between 2017–2021. The game combines elements of documentary games, persuasive play, and the fundamentals of interactive narrative to provide a playful explanation of explicit and implicit policy. It is, in short, an interactive system about a system. This interpretation of the system was derived not from a top-down view of the system, but by the reverse engineered understanding informed by two years of investigative journalism research informed by the data in both the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers. This paper articulates the development process, release, and subsequent observations from an experienced engaged by more than 45,000 players. This case study is understood as the first ever playful interactive based on the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers investigations.