It's no secret that newspapers are struggling equally readers get older and young people stop (or never outset) picking up the newspaper. And then what's a hemorrhaging old brand to do? If it's the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, create a community-broad game.

"Picture the Incommunicable," co-developed by the Lab for Social Calculating at the Rochester Institute of Engineering science and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, combines three different types of gaming to class a vii-week competition. There is a new Spider web-based Flash game each weekday, a puzzle or game in the newspaper two days a week, and at least one challenge each calendar week involving players going to specific locations throughout the city to claim a code or clue. Points are tallied up and awarded to i of three factions, and in the end, the 300 top players are invited to a costume gala on Halloween night. Throughout the game, the factions are earning money for charities in Rochester.

RIT Center

It's non a bad idea, and when the game kicked off Saturday, more than 1,000 people had signed up, three times the expected amount. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's obvious hope is that, at least during the seven weeks, local immature'uns volition pick up a few copies of the paper a week. Along with the two games in the physical paper, the entire back page of the Lord's day sports section will be wholly dedicated to the competition.

Microsoft'south Bing search engine awarded the project $xiii,000 in grant funding, as well as support from Bing Maps. "What rocks for all of united states of america in Seattle, of course, is that Bing Maps will be a fundamental part of the online game play every bit both reference and function of the puzzles," Betsy Aoki, a Bing plan director, wrote on the Bing weblog. The scavenger hunt Spider web site SCVNGR is also participating, and Kodak (which was originally founded in Rochester) is donating weekly prizes.

"Picture the Impossible" has been in development since Feb of 2008, and if successful, could be reimagined and rolled out to other communities. "The idea is that the piece of work we practice will turn into a framework that we could implement in other cities," Liz Lawley, director of RIT's Lab for Social Computing, told the Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab. "The D&C is a Gannett paper, and Gannett is looking advisedly at what they're doing. Nosotros run into a lot of potential to expand into other Gannett markets."

The game kicked off Sat, and judging by the activity on its Facebook folio, it does seem to have active fans. For the Democrat and Chronicle, though, this is only worth it if more people buy the newspaper, then continue ownership it after the game ends. Will this happen? Probably not. But at least the newspaper is trying something new in a field that notoriously lags behind. "The industry in large isn't using new tools and they're non experimenting at lot," Traci Bauer, the D&C's managing editor for content and digital platforms, told the Nieman Journalism Lab. "We desire to be working on projects that put new tools of appointment in the mix."

[via Nieman Journalism Lab]