Twitter Made a Video Game

By Rollin Bishop

Twitter has made a video game. (Following the initial publication of this article, a Twitter spokesperson reached out to clarify that Twitter partnered with designer Momo Pixel to make said video game.) Perhaps more importantly, Twitter has rewritten its privacy policy to include clearer language that's moved away from legal jargon, according to the social media company. As part of that, the company has released a web game called Twitter Data Dash to help folks better understand complex parts of its privacy policy.

"The Twitterverse can be tricky to navigate if you don't know your way around," the description of Twitter Data Dash reads. "So we made a game to help you understand our privacy policy a little better. Welcome to PrivaCity! Get your dog, Data, safely to the park. Dodge cat ads, swim through a sea of DMs, battle trolls, and learn how to take control of your Twitter experience along the way."

Twitter Data Dash is available via browser and as the description implies it sees a character, chosen from a list of options, tasked with navigating a dog named Data safely to the park. Moving between the levels seems to have a brief explanation of some privacy policy measures but it otherwise plays out like an extremely strange platformer. To be blunt, it's also an extremely frustrating experience as a game in general as more than once I found myself stuck on geometry and navigating around at all was not terribly responsive.

Having spent roughly 10 minutes with Twitter Data Dash, I feel pretty confident in saying that it is perhaps the least useful way to internalize this information. Asking anyone to delve into a giant set of text about any platform's privacy policy is never going to be an easy task, but at least there's the actual information being delivered in a digestible way in Twitter's case. Twitter Data Dash feels and looks like a novelty -- and to be fair, it seemingly knows exactly what it is -- built to raise awareness that is more likely to raise eyebrows.

What do you think about Twitter making a video game? Would you like to see more informational games like this in the future from the service? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop in order to talk about all things gaming!

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