Things have changed quite a bit in the process of electing the so-called "leader of the free world". And I am not referring to the fraud committed in the previous US elections, but rather to the use of videogames as a new propaganda tool. Billboards, posters, TV ads, pins, slogans, songs and colorful balloons have been some of the traditional weapons used for getting a four-year rental contract on that little white house in Washington D.C. Now, politicians are experimenting with videogames.
In late 2003, at the beginning of the Democratic primaries, there was a lot of talk about the use of new technology, specially the Internet, as a way to do a new kind of high-tech grass-roots politics. The pre-candidate that was changing the rules of the game was Dr. Howard Dean, who was by then hailed by the media as a favorite to get the nomination for the Democrat party (how wrong they were...). Dean was using email campaigns to collect funds, web pages and even blogs, the flavor of the day in cool publishing web technologies. By December, journalist Steven Johnson argued in Slate that there was only one popular culture thing missing in this campaign: videogames1. I was reading that article in my office at Powerful Robot, my game development studio in Uruguay, and immediately was exchanging smiley faces on Instant Messenger with my friend and partner Ian Bogost in Los Angeles. Both of us had been sleeping just a few hours per day for the last couple of weeks, but Johnson's article gave us a hint that our secret project was on the right track. A few days later, we completed the Howard Dean for Iowa Game, an online game commissioned by the Dean campaign (http://www.DeanForAmericaGame.com). The first official US presidential election videogame was born.
Certainly, it was not the first time that games or videogames had been used in an election, but it was the first time to the best of our knowledge that a videogame had been officially endorsed in a US presidential election. Both Bogost and myself are videogame researchers and we do focus on "games with an agenda" (we host a joint blog devoted to these games called WaterCoolerGames.org). As you can imagine, it is hard to be a researcher and at the same time a producer of some of your objects of study, but I think that it is something bound to happen when new communication genres emerge. So, keep that in mind when you continue reading this article.
It is sometimes hard to believe, but games and politics have a long history. Monopoly, the classic board game, has its roots in a 1904 game made a Quaker woman from Virginia, US, called Lizzie J. Maggie. Originally called "Landlord's Game"2, the game was created to make a point about land taxation. There is a long tradition of using games for educational purposes, so it should not be surprising that games also had been used for persuasive political reasons.
Earlier this year, Cornell University organized an exhibit called "Games We Play"3, focusing on the connection between pastimes and ideas, including parody, politics and pedagogy among others. I strongly recommend paying a visit to their website, where you will find pictures and descriptions of magnificent examples of games from the last couple of centuries. Among the pieces exhibited, there was one particularly interesting in the light of the current US election campaign. The "Cleveland Second Term Puzzle"4 was created in 1892, as part of Grover Cleveland's re-election campaign. It features a maze made with wood and metal and the goal was supposedly landing wooden balls (conveniently painted red, blue and white) into a space called the "President's room". The game's simply mechanics are quite similar to today's political videogames, which are simply adapting to cool hot technology what Cleveland was doing 112 years ago.
One of the main questions that political game designers have to deal with is: how do I turn my candidate into a videogame character? Well, it certainly helps if he is a videogame character in the first place. In 2002, former wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura announced that he would create videogames to support his re-election campaign5. Sadly for the political game history, he later decided not to run again and it seems that those games never ended up being produced.
These are just three historical examples of the use of games within US politics, but there are certainly many more cases in other parts of the world (a history of this game form is yet to be made, so if you happen to know an example of some obscure early political game, please let me know at frasca@itu.dk). One of the main characteristics of games is that they can take a complex system and model it in a much simpler way. In this sense, political games work similarly to political cartoons, combining entertainment with an editorial point that may be oversimplified but it is easy to grasp.
Howard Dean is now long-forgotten, but his high-tech political strategy survived him. Certainly, the Dean for Iowa game did not help him winning that particular state, but it seems it was enough to start a trend. In the following six months after it was launched, four games officially endorsed by the Republican and Democrat parties have been launched (and by the time you read this, my sources tell me that there should be a fifth).
The Dean for Iowa game aimed at illustrating volunteers about the tasks involved in campaigning. The player had to place virtual supporters on an Iowa map and then complete three different mini-games that involved sign-waiving, going door to door while talking to neighbors and distributing leaflets in the park. You can play the game at http://www.DeanforAmericaGame.com.
In late March, the GOP (acronym for the Republican "Grand Old Party" ) launched "Kerry vs. Kerry". This Flash piece shows Kerry fighting against himself in a boxing ring. The production values are not extremely good, but it features a voiceover by Don King. Presented as a game, it may be better described technically as an interactive cartoon, since all that the player needs to do is navigating through a hypertext where she can learn about different issues on which Kerry supposedly contradicted himself. You can play this somehow crude but certainly effective piece at http://www.gop.com/kerryvskerry/.
In mid-April, the Republicans stroked back with "John Kerry: Tax Invaders". This is certainly a game, since it mimics the classic Space Invaders. However, it is extremely poor on a technical level and it looks like it was designed by Bush himself (hey, I warned you about my bias at the beginning of this article, remember?). The game wants to address Kerry's supposed tax plans and allows you to control George W. Bush's less favored body part (his head). The "taxes" are represented by some abstract blocks that need to be destroyed by the player. In my opinion this is quite a problematic game on a rhetorical level. The "enemy" has a very abstract representation in the game. To make things worse, the designers decided to use Bush as a main character, providing him with one single possible action: shooting (knowing his trigger-happy policies, this decision can certainly backfire). I would have kept the main character abstract, probably using the elephant (the Republican Party mascot) rather than the head of the President. The game is available at http://www.gop.com/taxinvaders/.
It seems that the Republicans really enjoy playing games, because in late-May 2004 "Kerryopoloy" was launched. Another interactive cartoon disguised as a game, its goal was to illustrate Kerry's personal wealth by showcasing his real-estate properties (http://www.gop.com/kerryopoly/).
In mid-June it was the turn of the Democrats, who posted a Flash piece also billed as a game. Again, it could be better described as an interactive cartoon but it showcases much higher production values than the three previous GOP examples. Featuring a donkey (the Democrat mascot), the player selects between three different degrees of kicks. The goal, as you can imagine, is to kick George W. Bush out of the White House (http://www.democrats.org/kickbushout/index.html).
Will some voter change her mind after playing one of these games? My answer is a rotund no. But, again, it could be hardly argued that any single political radio, TV or printed piece can have that effect by itself. Political campaign work better as a system, where all the messages are orchestrated. Certainly, certain media speak better to certain citizens than others. In those cases, the medium is also the message: a political party that uses videogames can be perceived as hip by a young audience.
It is still early in the current US presidential election and I am certain that we will see more cases of political videogames, both officially-endorsed and created by amateurs. Can this genre be a legitimate tool for democracy? I believe so. Then again, if all political propaganda was reduced to games, then we would face a problem. But when they are complemented with other messages, games can put some fun back into politics. Even if you agree or not with the ideas that they convey, this new genre that appeals to young citizens can be of great value if it encourages them to engage in critical discussions about the topics being depicted.
What we have seen are simply examples of experimentations within the new genre of political videogames. None of them have the production values of commercial videogames, but they are rather products that are put together in just a couple of weeks with a very low budget. In that sense, politicians are not taking many risks. They simply are testing this new arena and seeing how this new genre is perceived. As videogames play an increasingly important role in our culture, it would not be surprising that we see more and more examples of this trend in upcoming elections. Who knows? Maybe some day political spin-doctors will carry a Nintendo Game Boy in their bags of tricks.
1 You can read his "SimCandidate" article here.
2 There is quite a controversy on who was the real inventor of Monopoly (because the game made so much money) so keep that in mind if you want to further research on its history. Here is a link to the original 1904 patent of "The Landlord's Game".
3 See http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/games/.
4 For an image of the game see: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/games/political/2.html.
5 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/26/politics/main507378.shtml.