'News Games' Spark Hits and Heat Online

Readers who find Newser too challenging can rest their brains with online games that play out major news events. Often linked via social networking sites, millions of Web surfers are killing pig-like viruses, tossing shoes at President Bush, or landing a plane in the Hudson River in popular Flash games. It's also fairly easy to make one, and even sell it on eBay, CNET reports.

Sock and Awe—yes, the Bush shoe game—sold online for $8,000 and earned that much in 2 days with online ads. But game-makers must prepare for hate mail, as Sock and Awe's buyer discovered. "They're virtual shoes," she protested. "Even the real shoe that was thrown didn't hit him." But when the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist faced legal problems, she took it more seriously, adding news updates to the game "so people would be kept aware of his plight." (More internet stories.)