Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SimCandidate - Why Aren't There More Political Sims?

Posted by simoniker on from the president-pikachu dept.

Thanks to Slate for their piece discussing why there aren't more videogames simulating current-day politics. The article posits: "The U.S. presidential campaign may be the first true election of the digital age, but it's still missing one key ingredient. Where is the video-game version of Campaign 2004?" It goes on to suggest that "presidential politics lends itself naturally to the idiom and audience of today's games. Political campaigns are already structured like games, with an escalating series of discrete competitions that determine the eventual winner. In addition, there's an existing body of readily available data, going back many decades, that could be harnessed to craft the simulation" Would you play a modern-day political sim videogame?

16 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. There once were... by Kobal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But look at the development costs for a game today. Given that a political game will mainly, if not only, sell in the country which politics it's based upon and that games are a worldwide market (except the very peculiar and specific japanese market), do you think it's a risk worth taking for any large game publishing house? Maybe it could work as shareware or open source. But except a handful of gems, most shareware sims in the past have been quite poor, either in ui and polish (from bothersome to downright horrible) or in simulation depth (which is much more annoying.)

  2. This game Pays! by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Where is the video-game version of Campaign 2004?

    Lol, so, you start out running for mayor, promising the smaller companies (construction) projects if they support you, and donate towards your campaign. After elected, you help nominate judges to ease laws towards construction, which leads into more money for your election for the Governor. Easing tax burdens to keep large companies in your state, and try to make honey deals, you spend money on pork projects for all your supporters.
    Deny the local transportation requirements that might have to cross the richer areas of town. As the money rolls in, you run for Senate. Promise to ease tax laws, or support some religious view to gain support. Slander everyone, showing how righteous you are, never broke any laws (or just got caught), and you are the perfect person for the job.

    Now as Senator, you get to join some nice Committees. Maybe join Energy and Natural Resource, so you allow a nice company from your home state to "Ahem, Bid" on natural gas mining in federal land.

    After some time, you get bored with milking federal and state money and decided to run for President. All you need is a platform. If you're the Republican you have the religious backing, but you have to ban personal freedoms, unless its gun control and force religion on some states. If you're Democrat you have try to pass gun control and help further rights, (gay, women, etc) and spend lots of money public programs that don't work.

    So after you choose your poison, Democrat or Republican, (Not Liberal, as it doesn't support big government) and you get start going to the national caucuses. Oh the fun of promising even bigger pork projects, kick backs and under handed political back stabbing. Debate over issues and sound the same every year.

    Then after elected, you appoint Judges that agree with your "wink" personal views. Make powerful political and business contacts that help family and friends make billions. Purchase some banks maybe. After your term, you quit, and collect a check yearly for the rest of your life. Of course, you have to build a library, and do lots of 1000 dollar a plate dinners. Everyone wants to throw money at you.

    My god this game sounds fun, and it pays well too!

    1. Re:This game Pays! by Goldsmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You forgot some key things:

      You get to work ALL the time!
      No family for you, in fact, people will be trying to turn your family against you with allegations of everything from infidelity to drug use. If you're not a problem to society, your son/wife/cousin will be soon.

      Take out loans!
      That's right, it costs money to run, and sometimes, you just don't have the pork to back it up, so sell your house, take out huge loans and tell your kids they can't go to college.

      Forget your ideals!
      Forget whatever you may believe, it's time to tow the party line. You don't want to be on the wrong side of the issue. If you're playing a Republican, you'd better not reach out to minorities, the Democrats will call it fake anyway. If you're playing a Democrat, you'd better not try and act responsable, the Republicans will just make something up if you don't give them something to work with.

      By the way, my dad was a politician, and above are the reasons he got out. It's not all fun and games, there's a lot of reality they could expose with a game like this.

  3. Who needs to play? by smallfries · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It makes we wonder why we don't use leadship simulators. I'm thinking of something like SimCity meets CivIII. Lots of variables to tweak that can have various effects on the nation and its economy. Then we could have cool elections based on the candidates playing the games to see who can score highest.

    Of course, we'd never agree on how to score the results or which models to base the simulation on. After all, depending on how you slant the models you could have the ultimate propaganda tool...

    --
    Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  4. URL here: by Tumbleweed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here ya go, from an interview with special effects designer Richard Taylor:

    http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/sto ry.asp?id=7530006A-C103-4E13-9A55-F6EFCC111ACC

  5. Not political but geopolitical... by gklinger · · Score: 3, Interesting
    There was a great game called Balance of Power (followed up by Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition) which was a simulation of geopolitics and was interesting in that the goal was power and prestige while avoiding a world war. It's quite unique and well worth checking out. You can read a fascinating article about designing Balance of Power written by Chris Crawford, the author of the game.

    I know this isn't 100% on topic but I couldn't resist. I think a lot of people find this game stimulating if they only knew about it.

  6. Nationstates.net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Try out Nationstates.net. It's simple, it's addictive, and it wont take more than 15 minutes out of your day.

  7. Most people... by stoolpigeon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    are not interested enough in real politics - that impact their real lives - to go out and do something as simple as voting.

    I have a feeling that the pool of people that would be interested is very small and of those, many would be too busy doing real political things.

    I guess if it was simple enough and you could become ruler of the world or something people might dig it. I remember when I first played SimFarm. I lost interest because I kept going bankrupt. It modeled reality too closely. I finally found one scenario where it was pretty easy to get rich, eventually buy the crop duster, and I had fun flying around the map.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  8. Re:Well... by JFMulder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Have you ever heard about a game called Eon of Tears? It's not really a sim, but more of an Action-RPG based on the Bible in which you play the role of Jesus, Moses and other biblical characters.

    Here's a quick interview with the co-president of the little start-up.

    I wouldn't know about this company in fact if their office wasn't like 3 streets from my house! :p

  9. Some old, some new by ManDude · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Check out politika, if you can find it.
    Look here
    And something more recent: Republic

    A place to start. If people find others, please post.

  10. President Elect by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    President Elect was an excellent game, with (for a game) a realistic grasp of electoral politics based on a database of actual state-by-state results from 1964 to 1988.

    One could run as various historical candidates, or make one's own candidate by selecting the candidate's position on various issues.

    It's mostly a resource management game: you spent money and time on different states or regions to sway the voters in those places. The trick was knowing which states were swing states, and spending your time and money there.

    The game ended on election night, with each state reporting in and showing percentages and the color of the candidate who won it. The states reported in on a staggered schedule based on local poll-closing time, and once or twice I even saw one candidate declared the winner, only to see it change when all votes in swing states had reported in.

    If I were not watching the webcast of Don Knuth's 10th Annual Christmas Tree lecture at 4:15 pm PST,
    at http://scpd.stanford.edu/knuth/, I'd tip my hat to Strom Thurmond's illegitimate mixed-race daughter by playing Strom against Goldwater in 1964 tonight.
    If they made a copy updated with electoral data and demographics through 2004, I'd buy it in a minute.

    --
    Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
  11. Re:Better question by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why hasn't there been a reality TV show yet, like "Who wants to be a Senator?"

    Stupid Campaign Finance laws, probably.

    I thought there was supposed to be one though, but the closest I could find was this: HBO's new series, Candidate 2012, will follow the journey of one curious and compelling young American as he or she travels across the country in an attempt to figure out what it will take to become President of the United States in the year 2012.

    Not sure how they'll get around the soft-money laws, though.

  12. Re:President Elect by Alkaiser · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well...there was also this. As far as I know it's the only one that actually involved real candidates.

    --
    Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
  13. SimCampaign already exists - from 1984 no less by stu72 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I thought part of the /. membership initiation was to type in at least 10 pages of Compute!'s Gazette ML code?

    http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/gazette/19 84 08-campaign.html

    Evidently not...

  14. One way to do it by Optical+Voodoo+Man · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I've thought that the whole political arena would be a fun game idea. I wouldn't limit it to 2004, but I'd let it be a little more universal. Politics has been around a long time. In order to stay in power (the goal of the game), you would need to balance:

    1) The probability that your constituents liked what you were doing
    2) The amount of political power you have
    3) The size of you election fund

    You can increase you funds by pandering to PACs and special interests, but if the voters find out you're dumping toxic waste in the playgrounds, you're out. The worse the transgression, the larger the monetary gain but the bigger the backlash if your caught.

    Then you have a random generator of temptations and opponents. Your term consists of a series of votes, for which you can vote for the PACs, you heart, or the people. Say the heart and people match 90% of the time. You get to keep what you don't spend beating the other contenders. The more you spend, the better your chances for re-election. Might I recommend the trophy wife.

  15. Stardock (Galciv) has an awesome one by gtshafted · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "There's all sorts of cool stuff in the lab. We have two new games in development right now. One is called The Political Machine, a strategy game where you run for President as well as a future sequel for Galactic Civilizations which won't be out any time soon."

    http://www.stardock.com/products/polmachine/