I had just arrived in the Middle East, and my editor was describing my first assignment for the wire service: I was to accompany the Israel Defense Forces on a raid of a suspected terrorist’s house. The piece would be published in a European paper that wanted a story about what happens on such missions, and how prisoners are treated. Equipped only with a map, a notebook, and advice, I set out to meet my contact, a commanding officer in the IDF.

Then I leaned back in my chair at my San Francisco apartment and got perspective. I wasn’t actually about to witness a raid, I was playing Global Conflicts: Palestine, a video game designed to convey the intricacies of being a journalist in the volatile Middle East. Global Conflicts: Palestine is made by Serious Games Interactive, a Danish company that is at the forefront of a new wave of games that explore management and leadership challenges. Other examples in the genre include Peacemaker, in which players are either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president, and Food Force, a game about the difficulties of dispensing food aid inside impoverished countries. Global Conflicts: Palestine is the first “serious game” in which you play as a journalist, and it’s been sold in some fifty countries since its July 2007 release, winning multiple industry awards for creativity. Can a game really capture the perils and responsibilities of being a journalist in a war-torn country?

Here’s how it goes: after getting an assignment, you are left to your own devices. You can wander the streets of Jerusalem, take a cab to the Palestinian town of Abu Dis, or visit the Jewish settlements and the neighboring Palestinian villages. Every move and decision, every word you utter, affects relationships with sources. Those relationships...

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