Serious games and budgeting, global financial crisis issues

[Danny Day]

Two good articles popped up recently one covering a game called Budget
Hero and another on the results of a game design challenge themed
around the global credit crunch, instigated by an interesting viral
video.

Postmortem: Getting Serious With Budget Hero
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23845

The experiment was the following: Could you get a 20-year old to put
away the Xbox or Wii controller for 30 minutes and play with the
national budget?

In May 2008, the experiment commenced. That’s when Budget Hero – the
national budget game – went online, just in time for the 2008
presidential election (the game is located here). The front end of the
game had to be fun, but the back end was dead serious.
...

Results from Game Design Challenge: The Crisis of Credit
http://gamecareerguide.com/features/748/results_from_game_design_.php

In its latest Game Design Challenge, Game Career Guide called on its
readers to explain the complexities of the global credit crisis within
the context of a fun and original video game.

Entries could approach the challenge from one of several angles, and
the result could take place within any genre. Would a credit crisis-
themed game be a good fit for the action genre? Would a survival
horror title be appropriate? Or would finance-oriented gameplay be
well suited to the time management genre?
...

Enjoy, been waiting on the results from Budget Hero for a while now.
Anyone keen to get the final analysis document?