Serious Game Classification

In this educational newsgame presented in the editorial section of the New York Times website, players assume the role of a US immigration officer handing out worker visas.

Immigrants are given a point value according to the Merit-Based Evaluation System (the Kennedy System) introduced to the US Congress in 2007; details such as occupation, education, language skills, and family status all contribute to how much a particular immigrant is worth. The player must process each immigrant within the time limit, adjusting their details so that each person "qualifies" for a worker visa. Occupations such as doctor and software engineer are worth more under the System, while other jobs like food service worker are worth much less. A native speaker of English is more desirable than someone with limited English skills, and someone with a parent or sibling who is a US citizen receives more points than someone with no close family in the US.

The player competes against another immigration employee controlled by the computer; this employee sets the baseline that the player must meet with each immigrant. Players themselves are scored by how quickly they process each immigrant, and by how close they come to the computer opponent's score in each round. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : Browser (Flash)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/points-of-entry-an-immigration-chal [...]