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Campaign-Themed Video Games?

Posted by timothy on from the bread-circuses-joysticks dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Gov. Jesse Ventura has come up with a 'great' way to get his campaign message to the younger demographics. 'The Ventura game -- or collection of games -- would be entertaining, 100-percent political and distributed free to voters as campaign literature, he says.' Wow, I can't wait, I haven't been this excited since Avoid the Noid from Dominos Pizza came out." Too bad video games aren't considered protected speech.

4 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Advertising in Video Games by Gizzmonic · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Avoid the Noid was hardly the most notorious fast-food marketing game on the NES. Let us not forget McKids, where you had to win Ronald McDonald's "magic bag" back from the Hamburglar, all the while collecting "golden arches" to gain extra lives. And yet, both games were pretty good as I remember.

    Nowadays, we have games that advertise for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson, boy bands, Britney Spears, etc. I think using video games in politics is actually a step up?

    PS: Does anyone know if Jesse Ventura is in the PS2 game "Legends of Wrestling"? This might mark his second video-game appearance...

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    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
  2. Can a Video game be a Satire? by PhatKat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    After hearing about this new Britney Spears video game, I have become consumed with the idea of Video Game Satires. If one were to make a video game where, say, the objective is to traverse through America as Britney Spears, selling addictive pink bubble gum to urban teens, could I use her likeness without her permission?

    -- PK

  3. How's Ventura doing? by Galvatron · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Now, of course I know that this is going to be a controversial question, but are there any Minnesota residents who want to comment on Gov. Jesse Ventura's performace? Obviously he was all over the news when he got elected, and whenever he said something offensive, but I haven't heard very much about his actual performance in office, so I'm curious what people think of him.

    Anyway, to get back on topic, computers are definately great campaign tools. The amount of information that could be conveyed through handing out cd-roms (think aol) is enormous. I'm not sure games are the right way to go though; it's tough to make a fun game. It's harder to make a fun, educational game. It's damn near impossible to make a fun, educational game in the kind of time the programmers are likely to have before the election. A lame game seems likely to do a lot more harm than a fun game would do good.

    --
    "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
  4. This could actually be good (in theory). by jcsehak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Image a Warcraft-like game where the resources (oil, forests) are modeled after their real-life counterparts. You'd gain a whole new perspective on drilling for oil in the middle east, africa, or alaska. You could use the buildings and vehicles to explain concepts about how our government works.

    If he used the game to educate people about the issues, then made analogies to the game to explain his stance on them, it would be a great way to get people more involved in elections. Granted, it'll probably be more like the fast-food games mentioned in other posts, and from the article, it seems like it'll be more like a collection of mpgs than a game, but don't knock it just yet.

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    c-hack.com |