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

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.

Re:People are bored

[Moraelin]

You are partially right. Yes, a lot of companies are just focused on milking as much money as possible out of their customers.

(Been there. Had the boss royally pissed off at me when I told the customer that, no, they don't need an uber-sophisticated custom solution to solve their problem. "Are you nuts?!! Are you out of your mind?!! We're trying to take their money, not tell them that they could solve that cheaper!!" On the bright side, after that he never took me to those 6 hours meetings any more.)

On the other hand, I'd disaggree that it is a waste of time. Games can be a very immersive experience, and can get a subtle message accross _very_ efficiently.

Now I'm not talking about ham-fisted smacking someone over the head with your political message. "Shoot money with president bush's head" is too unsubtle IMHO to actually do anything.

As another poster wrote, "Propaganda's greater achievement was convincing the world that it doesn't exist." I.e., the ideal propaganda (game or not) is one which doesn't look like propaganda at all. Failing that, you'll want one that can pass for non-propaganda.

The way I'd design a political game, if I had to, would be pretty much following the structure of a political speech. I also assume a big-ish budget game.

1. Start with some truths. Not necessarily good for you. Neutral stuff is good. Gets people in a mood to nod to the rest of the stuff too.

E.g., it's a fact that there's been a war in Iraq. Or it's a fact that there are homeless people. Or that there are gang wars. Etc.

Start the game with that. Don't even try to colour it it politically, unless it comes very naturally.

2. Continue with some truisms. Stuff which is technically true, but not necessarily even relevant for your message or in other ways supporting your conclusion.

By this time you start colouring stuff your way.

3. Feed them the conclusion. If you did a good job of convincing them to nod through 1 and 2, they'll swallow it too.

Remember it's about being subtle. People are more eager to believe what they think is their own conclusion, than yours. And it still has to seem a game.

Don't give them directly something like "vote for us because we'll protect you from evil offshoring corporations." Give them something which might fit the game. E.g., protecting a candidate from an assassin, sent because said candidate is opposing international corporations.

Don't give them something like "Vote for us, because we'll stop pollution." Give them a game set in a world, which, absolutely incidentally, is destroyed by polution and plunging into anarchy.

Also remember that games are rather long affairs and played in episodes. I don't think many people sat and played, say, KOTOR for 30 hours straight, from beginning to end. So you don't necessarily want a linear snowing the audience, stretched over the whole game. Several snow-jobs, following the same truths-truisms-conclusions paths, might work better. E.g., one per game level or episode.

Just an idea :) Of course, it probably wouldn't get past the beancounters and marketeers, who'll likely instead want something which just screams "VOTE FOR X!!!" in your face. But still, just showing that a subtle and relatively effective politically tainted game would be possible. At least theoretically.

Political games

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find links to several political games here.

Re:Are you trying to tell me

[loyalsonofrutgers]

Actually, that's about the surest way to lose. Remember: politics is the conflict over the distribution of values and burdens. If you're not in the game, that just means more of the former for the rest of us, and more of the latter for you.

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.

What is the difference between...

[keoghp]

Q> What is the difference between a board game and a politician?

A> The board game doesn't lie to you.

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

[meringuoid]

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!" ?

But then again, everyone I knew who ever had a copy of Command & Conquer always preferred to play as the Soviets. I played an in-store demo of Medal of Honour - the Pacific war game - and was terribly disappointed that in the excellent Pearl Harbour sequence I could only play as the Americans. I WANT TO BOMB PEARL HARBOUR, DAMMIT!

Much of the fun of historical war games is what might have been. I want to march into Rome with a thousand elephants. I want to lead the Golden Horde to Paris. I want to hang Washington for treason. I want to land Spanish troops in England and dethrone the heretic queen.

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.

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

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[meringuoid]

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

Possibly - though since history is written by the winners, any counterfactual campaign would probably be 'being the bad guy'. One scenario I mentioned that I'd like to play out was the Spanish invasion of England in 1588: it could certainly be argued that England at that time was a rogue state openly sponsoring terrorist attacks, and Spain was quite justified in acting against Elizabeth's illegitimate regime. But the Armada was defeated, and in English minds to this day King Philip was undoubtedly the bad guy...

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....

Turnabout is fair play

[Space Coyote]

So a few weeks ago the Republican National Committee comes out with Kerryopoly, apparently criticizing John Kerry for being rich. Yes, that's right, republicans criticizing someone for being rich. The response? Contractopoly from the Centre for American Progress, where you get to collect no-bid Iraqi rebuilding contracts. There's an expression to do with pointing out the splinter in your neighbour's eye while not noticing the plank in your own, I think it might apply here.

Bushgame

[SanGrail]

Example: www.bushgame.com

I've played it to the end, and the most annoying thing was how long it took to kill the Bosses.

It's meant to have a ridiculous plot, does have kinda cool graphics, and it got just a bit too preachy towards the end - but the reason I actually finished it was *for* the little info snippets.

E.g. the presentations on the Death Tax, and the percentage of tax breaks going towards the top 20% & 1% earners in the US.

The political bias is pretty open right from the start, but what I found really worrying is I'm not seeing how someone else could come up with a more positive spin on some of those stats - other than covering them up, of course. :(

And last note, the most disturbing thing about the Voltron sequences for me was - the balls move...

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.

Re:nice

[JuggleGeek]

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

You're a bit overly optimistic, IMO.

hmm...

[(1)down]

Cue the debate on if mrs. pacman was a front for womens liberation...

Wow...

[murky_lurker]

All the tedium of canvassing in one flash game. And they wonder why voters are so cynical? ;)

What would be more interesting is if they'd avoided the obvious arcade-style game and created something that made the player think about the consequences of voting yea or nay on a particular issue. There's an old edutainment (yuk) title called Hidden Agenda that puts you in the role of a newly-elected president of a South American country, giving you the chance to appoint your own cabinet, influence policy and make decisions affecting your country. The game is exceedingly difficult, and is thought-provoking precisely because it's nigh-impossible to "win" - every decision angers someone.

In the same vein, the old Yes Prime Minister game showed how policy can be distorted and seemingly innocuous decisions could become controversial in a much more thoughtful manner than these Flash efforts.

Okay, so the games are probably a gimmick to increase site hits more than anything, but I'm disappointed they didn't see the scope for doing something different.

Bush Game

[SparafucileMan]

U want a political game, check
http://www.emogame.com/bushgame.html

(its all Flash, btw)