The Christian Science Monitor wraps its arms around a long list of “news games,” from the lighthearted “Swinefighter” (pictured) to more thoughtful efforts covering Hurricane Katrina, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the global economic slump.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has been funding news game ventures, seeing them as a potential moneymaker that reconnects news sites to their audiences. The state of “news games” now isn’t near that kind of success, says a foundation vice president, but it will get there,

“There hasn’t been a breakthrough in terms of a digital news game the way that the crossword puzzle was a breakthrough for the daily newspaper 100 years ago,” said the foundation’s Eric Newton. “That hasn’t happened yet, but it will.”

But with mainstream news brands everywhere taking a beating in an advertising slump, don’t look for a fad to become a serious trend or feature of news sites anytime soon. The Knight Foundation recently honored a Pittsburgh developer for a series of 127 free games in which players could learn about current and historical events. The dev has hoped to sell off the popular series to a news organisation, but has had no luck.

Video Games That Let You Play with Your News [Christian Science Monitor]

“Content is king.” Well, there’s about to be a revolution and some regicide. The consumers of tomorrow want content for free. And they will make their own content. That is potentially more fun and more interesting than consuming carefully planned, carefully made, well-mannered content from a professional. Films and TV are already at that point where they are consumed and remixed freely by consumers. Music was there long ago. Games will be there soon.

The content of the future will be in tools. Tools like the ones shipped with Little Big Planet (although I suspect it’s still too early for that game to start a true paradigm shift.) Tools that will let consumers engage directly with the content.

Actually, this is the tipping point when “consumers” become “users”. Consumers are passive. Users, active

Quick and worth a read — it’s certainly a lot more to the point than some of the longer pieces on the same topics.

The Futures of Entertainment [game girl advance]