The Obama administration has sounded out Microsoft's main man, CEO Steve Ballmer, on the possibility of the company producing a video game which would task players with balancing the US budget.


Not as fun as tearing up a desert nation looking for weapons of mass destruction, I agree, but it's just as important.

Erskine Bowles, who has been tasked by President Obama with finding ways to get the United State's budget back out of the red, envisages the game as being a simple one, "that would enable anyone with a computer to take a stab at balancing the budget". So, something flash-based, then, a web game.


You have to wonder whether the game would be a PR stunt, showing how hard it is to balance a nation's books, or whether the administration may want to take a good look at its best performers, see if there's something to be learned.

Nation's soaring deficit calls for painful choices [USA Today]