My friends have an indie game development studio that's basically been doing this for years. You might have heard of them since they did a MidEast "Peace Strategy" game that got lots of critical acclaim.

However, just because they make great games based on real news, doesn't mean that they have an easy business model that just prints money. If you're doing traditional sales, you have to worry about piracy. And if you're trying what's popular now, free web-based games, then you're relying on almost the same advertising model that failing to keep traditional news outlets afloat.

I know that my friends' Play The News platform basically simplifies the process of converting news into games, but I don't know if journalists and traditional media companies are receptive to adopting this technology. In fact, late last year, they had to temporarily stop producing new content for their platform. Not exactly sure why, but I can probably get them to comment here on Slashdot if you guys are curious.