In These Games, the Points Are All Political

bettiwettiwoo writes "A New York Times article (free reg. req.) highlights a new trend in games, and political marketing: openly political games. Both Republicans and Democrats are developing games with political messages, albeit using slightly different strategies. A featured developer, Persuasive Games, is open about their not-so-objective objective: 'We design, build, and distribute electronic games for persuasion, instruction, and activism.' But would that be declared on the games so produced? And would it matter if it did? In such times of artful manipulation, it is actually quite a relief to find that not all politicos are sophisticated high tech geeks: the Long Island Political Network invites you to play... Tic Tac Toe."

Comments

Are you trying to tell me

[MikeDX]

That the only winning move in politics is not to play?

Propaganda's greatest victory...

[wrinkledshirt]

Propaganda's greatest victory has been convincing the world it no longer exists.

nice

[_newwave_]

Tic-Tac-Toe...I guess that's appropriate for the intelligence level of most of our politicians of today.

People are bored

[suzerain]

I think I've worked at enough failed dot-coms to know why this is happening. Basically, they've got budget X, to maintain the Web site for these political nitwits, and they have to spend it somehow, so that the Corporate Man will keep the greenbacks flowing next time around.

So, they have to piss it away somehow, but really...how can you piss away a great big budget just creating some CMS to handle the candidate's boring "news alerts" and other shit that no one reads? Hence, here comes the "brainstorm", and they all come up with the same bunch of tired old ideas to waste the money and justify their jobs that we've all implemented in the past. You know, polls, "online communities", and Flash games! "Young people like games. We need to lure young voters. Our game will be so kewl that they will all like flock to polling booths and totally elect us!"

And then these stupid little wastes of hard disk space serve to preach to their already converted Beavises and/or Buttheads who are all like "this is so cool...i can like...shoot money with president bush's head...heh heh, heh heh".

Or maybe not. Maybe it's brilliant political strategy.

At least they are upfront about it

[velo_mike]

There's no hiding the leanings of Persuasive Games when the goal is "Strategically place campaigners on a virtual map to reach out to more Dean supporters". In the same vein, there's no hidden agenda with that movie that came out last week, it seems pretty up front in the advertising. It's the messages weaved into the story lines of games, movies and tv shows, the preaching under the guise of entertainment, that gets my hackles up.

Nothing new under the sun

[Young Master Ploppy]

.....what, you mean America's Army ISN'T political?

With tinfoil hat on, it could certainly be argued that every game based on a real-life situation is political, at least subliminally - think about it, how many games have you seen where you play a US Army / Secret Service / CIA / NSA / whatever operative, on a secret mission to stop those evil nasty gooks who are hell-bent on destroying freedom (aka USA) at all costs?

Couldn't it also be argued that every single one of these games contributes on some level to the message "America is great - it's those foreigners you should fear and hate. Stay at home son, and join the US Army!" ?

Just out of interest, how many games have you heard about where you have to stop domestic terrorists?

I'm not trying to claim a deliberate attempt to indoctrinate, just that if you take a step back and view it from the outside (confession:I'm a Brit) then market forces have dictated an unnerving consensus.

OK, OK, I'll take my tinfoil hat off now. Here, I'll even give you a start : -1 Troll

;)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[CGP314]

Grandparent: Couldn't it also be argued that every single one of these games contributes on some level to the message "America is great - it's those foreigners you should fear and hate. Stay at home son, and join the US Army!" ?

Parent: Games in which you can only follow the glorious patriotic line are just not complete. You've got to have the chance to be the bad guy once in a while.

I think your use of the phrase 'bad guy' serves to reinforce the grandparent's comment, not contradict it.


-Colin

Developing a political game

[timealterer]

One of the main challenges I came across in developing a political game was that politics aren't inherently very fun. A racing game or hockey game that leans to the simulation side can still be really enjoyable, but an accurate political simulation tends to be slow-paced and not scale well to large numbers of players. Of course the easy way out is to add fun stuff like assassinations, the mafia, etc....

Games have always been political.

[91degrees]

Ever since Space invaders. This was a Japanese game, so the imagery is a little difficult for westerners to comrehend, but the metaphors are there for those who take the trouble to look.

More recently we've had Tomb Raider, which is an ironic campaign against the objectification of Women, (ironically, the irony backfired), and Grand Theft Auto, protesting against the innefectiveness of the criminal justice system.

But do you really want to produce value?

[Chemisor]

> the conflict between those who contribute to society and those who consume from society
> you could also put into becoming a creator of value for society

But would you really want to create value for society which only consumes and gives you nothing in return?

> And even politicians have learned that you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

You shouldn't count on this. Politicians do not necessarily know which hand feeds them, and they certainly do not know how it does it.