Game turns moviegoers into human joysticks

Moviegoers have a new way to interact with theater screens, and it doesn't involve throwing tomatoes.

As part of a multimedia campaign to get people more involved with its Web news content, MSNBC.com has launched a game, called NewsBreaker Live, that plays in movie theaters. A motion-sensitive camera in the front of the theater measures how the audience is moving its arms. The camera then translates that collective motion to an onscreen paddle that players use to bounce a ball back up to the top of the screen to knock out blocks.

NewsBreaker Live is a version of a Web-based video game, NewsBreaker, that MSNBC.com is presenting on its site. In that game--a play on the old title Breakout--MSNBC.com headlines float to the bottom of the screen. When players hit 25 of the headlines with their paddle, they gain another life.
NewsBreaker Live

In the theater version, instead of a single player moving a paddle left and right with a keyboard, the entire audience controls the paddle together, moving it around by waving their arms.