SimCandidate

If only there were a LazyWeb for videogames. I've just published a fun little piece in Slate wondering why there's no videogame version of campaign 2004, along the lines of the incredibly detailed sports simulations that come out every year, updated with the latest teams and statistics. If we can have simulations that let you run a theme park or a Caribbean island or a Eastern Bloc insurrection, why can't we have one that lets you run a presidential campaign? As I say in the piece:

This is a strange state of affairs, because 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. And the country is filled with Monday-morning Carvilles who cultivate their own theories on how to win the Rust Belt, or why the Republican southern strategy is overrated.

I've already received some interesting emails talking about a few games along these lines from the late eighties and early nineties, including one fascinating message from one of the folks who designed these games. (I'll repost his message if he'll let me.) Sounds like most of these early versions were flops, but it occurs to me that one major thing has happened since then, and that's the aging of the gaming population. There were hardly any 35-year-olds like me buying games in 1988; now we're a dominant part of a huge industry. Sure, teenagers playing Super Mario Brothers for the first time probably weren't ready to role-play as a campaign manager. But those folks have all grown up now, and they're still playing.

Comments

[Dawn Maye]

I read your article yesterday and thought you'd like to know that we at Lantern Games, Magic Lantern Inc. are in the process of developing a 2004 Presidential Election simulation called "Frontrunner" which will be available for the PC market within the next two months.

In our game, we ask " Do you have the charisma and stamina it takes to be the next major world leader? Find out with our 2004 US Presidential Election simulation game!"

For more information, interested parties can go to the "Coming Soon" section of our website --

http://www.lanterngames.com/games/comingsoon.htm

In our game, players test their presidential prowess in this fast-paced game as they seize various issues, grab endorsements, and pit their skills against other politicians through debates, speeches, and talk shows.

We hope this game will encourage people to take a more active role in politics while having fun trying to make it to the oval office.

[judson]

Great Idea. What ever happened to the proposed cbs reality tv show 'The Candidate' ?

[Randy Chase]

Enjoyed your article. I've published two previous election sims ("Power Politics" and "The Doonesbury Election Game"), and was especially amused because I offered Microsoft and/or Slate the option of sponsoring my '04 campaign sim, but they didn't think it warranted a serious discussion.

Would love to chat with you sometime.

Randy

[David Weisman]

It would be even better if it were an online massively multiplayer simulation. Or wait, is that the regular election?

[Michael in Alaska]

Back in the late 80s, I played a game on the Apple II called "President Elect." You selected a presidential candidate from 1960 to 1984 (actual candidates such as Nixon and Mondale, or almost-candidates such as Cuomo) and ran their campaign for the nine weeks before election day. You could run candidates from one era against each other in any other era (e.g. Goldwater v. McGovern in 1980), apportioning resources to different states and regions based on fuzzy poll figures. It was fairly simple, played quickly and nicely mirrored actual historical outcomes. My teenage son recently found me a PC-compatible copy so that I've been able to play it again. I've never understood why an updated version of that game or another game never came out, since national elections seem to be a perfect fit for gaming simulations.

[Michael in Alaska]

Back in the late 80s, I played a game on the Apple II called "President Elect." You selected a presidential candidate from 1960 to 1984 (actual candidates such as Nixon and Mondale, or almost-candidates such as Cuomo) and ran their campaign for the nine weeks before election day. You could run candidates from one era against each other in any other era (e.g. Goldwater v. McGovern in 1980), apportioning resources to different states and regions based on fuzzy poll figures. It was fairly simple, played quickly and nicely mirrored actual historical outcomes. My teenage son recently found me a PC-compatible copy so that I've been able to play it again. I've never understood why an updated version of that game or another game never came out, since national elections seem to be a perfect fit for gaming simulations.

[Randy Chase]

"President Elect" was published by SSI and designed by Nelson Hernandez. He did two versions, the last one being the '88 version.

Haven't talked to Nelson for several years. Last I heard, he was working in the banking industry.

If Nelson had planned on doing a version in '92, I wouldn't have started Power Politics.

[Bill Seitz]

Maybe the problem is that candidates' behavior isn't human/complex enough to make an interesting simulation!

Hmm, has anyone applied a Turing Test to Shrub?

[Jkulhavy]

I am so pleased that several people have educated Mr. Johnson about the existence of "President Elect," a game I played with great zeal during the summer of 1988 after my first year of law school. The game has every feature that Mr. Johnson pined for in his Slate article, and was well-received by game critics when it came out.

I recall that I ran one game with myself as a third-party free-trade social liberal against Mondale and Reagan (during Reagan's run for a second term). Thanks to a grueling campaign schedule, both Mondale and Reagan made a number of highly public gaffes, allowing me to garner about 10% of the vote, mostly drawn from Mondale's base.

"President Elect" has beautifully elegant game design, and one important feature I would like to see more of in simulations. The game allows the player to change any and all the variables that describe historical candidate behavior.

For example, the game's default rating of George H.W. Bush's rhetorical ability is pretty high, but I dialed him down on that score to more accurately reflect my impression of his capability behind a podium.

The game inspired endless tinkering and experimentation. It was also great fun as a two-player game. I went up against my centrist roommate in the '86 election and got my head handed to me on a plate (I had exhausted myself in cross-country last-minute campaigning, and I overspent on t.v. advertising in the South to no appreciable effect). Sitting in front of the computer watching the returns roll in state-by-state was realistically demoralizing.

This game richly deserves an update.

Incidently (writing as a confirmed computer game addict), I am always a little sad when computer gamers (or even worse, game designers) forget the history of their still-young hobby. The price of this forgetfulness is a shrinking horizon of inventive game development and entertainment value.

[Robert Blum]

There are several issues that prevent an election game from becoming a major success - which is the only chance for most people to ever hear about it. I have no doubt there are probably some small independent works on that topic. But finding them would take quite a bit of effort, even in the age of Google.

Reason #1: Graphics. Back in the 80's you could sell games that were mostly numbers and statistics because graphics weren't that dominant. Now, you need "glitz" and polish. That makes it a tough proposition, since it's lots of work and money involved.

Watch the progression of "Railroad Tycoon" to see the impact graphics had. It's hardly the same game any more.

Reason #2: Sort of related to #1. Cost for producing a game back then was lower. I would think that "Presidential Election Games" is quite a niche market. You could have a success selling only a few thousand games when production costs were low - right now you need at least 100,000 sales or so. And the industry as a whole is a bit risk-averse right now.

Now, even if you combine #1, there are still some games that buck that trend - watch "Rollercoaster Tycoon", done by a single person. So we come to

Reason #3: The main audience is older. We (think we do?) undertand the political game a bit better. As a result, any election game will either seem unbelievably simplistic - or so depressing that you wouldn't want to play it.

It's the same reason why less and less people vote - we consider politics dirty and don't believe we can change anything about it. (Not true. So go out and vote, damn it!)

[Ryan]

President Elect was an incredible game that I still enjoy playing today. Every six months or so I do a google search trying to find an updated version...I just hope that one of these days my dream will come true!!!

[Randy Chase]

A few comments...

The rights to "President Elect" were owned by SSI, which was bought by Mindscape... which eventually became part of the current SoftKey corporate conglomerate. The odds of ever seeing an updated version are less than picking the lottery numbers this weekend.

And when I last talked to Nelson, the designer, he was no longer working in the game business.

While Nelson and I had some very major philosophical differences in our approach to simulating the election process, I think that the Power Politics titles did a pretty good job of building on what Nelson had done in his two titles.

Our major difference focused on just how _big_ a role the economy plays in the outcome of an election. Nelson felt that it was the ONLY issue that mattered. While I feel that is probably the single biggest factor, I do think that there the process is a little more complicated than that.

One of my design goals was to show how a campaign "manages" or "packages" a candidate based on that individual's characteristics, attributes and strenths (or weaknesses). That was the primary reason for offering the player so many different campaign events, and the ability to focus advertising and events on specific issues.

The biggest change I'm planning for Power Politics for the '04 version (aside from supporting the remote possibility of a Florida Fiasco) is to move the game from CD delivery to an online playing experience - which will have the player running campaigns against other people instead of the "always somewhat restricted" computer AI.

Release details will be available at http://pp3.kelloggcreek.com in the next couple of weeks.

[Michael Glazer]

It seems to me that a well-designed simulation might be a good way of testing how different political systems and election techniques affect political outcomes and politicians' and voters' strategies. Play a round with a presidential system with an electoral college, one without the electoral college and one with a parliamentary or an Australian system and see what happens. Over many series of games, we might learn something useful as well as have some fun.

[Randy Chase]

That's an interesting concept; but the reality is that simulating "one" political/election simulation is a daunting challenge. The idea of trying to do a game that simulated multiple systems is just more than I can think about without breaking out in a cold sweat.

[Nick]

If you are a Galactic Civilization fan (www.galciv.com), then you might know that Stardock is also working on a political sim called The Political Machine (iirc) that is very near a beta for an early 2004 release. Looks promising...

[chris]

hey steven

you might be interested in a game that was set up for the french presidential election in 2002.

one was a stock market simulation, where you'd have to anticipate each candidate's moves in polls
http://www.presidentielles.net/presibourse/
the other was a help tool for political choice
http://www.presidentielles.net/bot/

the forum on this site got very popular by the evening of the first round...

[matt]

The politics of games/the games of politics. Check: http://www.deanforamericagame.com
For more information: http://ludology.org/article.php?story=20031223112105229&mode=print
ciao,
Matt

[diseño web]

Its so cool game!

[Marty]

I know that many movements are working on product placement in Hollywood stories (safe sex, environment, anti-gun, pro-gun, etc) They really are working to place products and ideas in the TV and films we watch but do we have an equally talented groups of people working the video game industry?

I can think of lots of ways that we fight over liberal and conservative dominance of Hollywood and movies but I am not sure folks are really paying much attention to the video game industry as a channel for advocacy and political communications. (Army games recruit)

Unfortunately, I don't play games much. (My family rents units around Thanksgiving so we can whack each other in a game of 007, but generally my nephews kill me quickly and I jump back in line with the other 14 kids, brothers, wives rotate in to play winners.) I started to Google for political games and games with causes and ran across interesting artiles on Slate ,
Salon
and games like Political Tycoon, and State of Emergency.

Gaming is a new communications channels. We need to continue to look for ways to plug into the opportunities that this represents and find ways to give voice to the audience. Bill Gates is interested in building new games that foster interaction and leverage the connectivity of modern culture. to speak and connect in to new audiences and speak the language of our people have looked at each major

NewsGaming. This company gets it but they have not cranked out lots of games.

We need to spend sometime gaming our scenarios so that the game world can include progressive messages. Can we actually use games to create valuable work products? The army is using games to recruit teenagers. We should be using gaming to teach people about politics and activism. We should be using these systmes to provide a hook into real world activism. We should see if we can get folks to do research, make commercials, write press releases, phone banking, GOTV as part of a game.

[Randy Chase]

One of my fundamental goals with my political simualtions was to provide a little insight into the way candidates are packaged and marketed in this era of media campaigns. When George magazine interviewed me, I described the Power Politics series of "activism software" - designed to entertain but just maybe to also make people actually think about what they see on the evening news during a presidential election season.

Obviously, when designing a game, entertainment value and fun have to be a consideration. (No one is going to pay for a boring game. Even if it is educational.) But even within that pragmatic requirement, I do think that it is possible to create games that are fun, give a reasonable illusion of simulating the real world, and actually make people think. (Or even, if you're real lucky, change how a few people think.)

Randy

(P.S. But then, I've been called "slightly eccentric" before by one magazine writer who did a piece on me and my games. Most of the folks who play my games asked why they added the word "slightly" to the description.)

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[Chris]

I was passed this link by a friend earlier today:

http://www.hotpotsoftware.com/p2000/p2000.htm

and only stumbled across this thread tonight. Seems as though someone's thinking along the lines of all of you, but it's available already. There's a demo version I'm downloading as I write, so we'll have to see how it looks.

Chris

[Taft]

I agree with all of you... but what we need is a better simulation of a presidential primary. Hotpot has been promising one in an upcoming version of President Forever(see above link), but that appears to be at least a month off, if not more.

There have been a slew of presidential election games, of varying quality. President Elect was probably the best, but it is unfortunately a few years out of date. A close second would be Power Politics/Doonesbury Election Game, but I found 3 things off balance there:
1) House elections were a blur.
2) They were set to the dynamics of their respective years.
3) Third parties were given a Perot-like strength.
I can give examples of each of the above shortcomings on request. However, both games are fantastic when you consider that the basic engine was designed more than a decade ago, and it would have been highly complex to try and simulate more than a given election.

President 2000 was an excellent game as well, but it fell short on the momentum issue. This was remidied in President Forever, and remidied quite well.

Election Day, as yet, remains the only game to attempt a presidential primary simulation. The closest I can come to a realistic simulation in this, however, is dumping cash in a 1976-ish setup to turn Steve Forbes into a Jerry Brown-type strategy. The game is in need of work, but it is promising. I am, however, occasionally trying to get information on the game(which, aside from not being able to comprehend the ideas of saving campaign cash for the big contests or building momentum, is still buggy...this can be attributed to the fact that it is a non-corporate project and is entirely based on feedback), but progress has been slow.

Frontrunner, Power Politics III, and The Political Machine all cover territory so often covered before, albeit in greater detail. I have loved these games of the past(even though I only discovered them in the past year, they are still excellent).

I would love to see a game that accurately(within reason; there is no exact science here) simulated a primary season. It's the one thing that is truly unpredictable...Iowa is an excellent case in point. Who thought Dean would manage the most brilliant gaffe in a long time on the night of a major defeat? But things like this do happen, candidates fall off stages while flipping pancakes, and so on. And that's what's great about the primaries. There is a lot more strategy involved. And it would also satisfy those of us who want a floor fight until the process frontloads itself to death or breaks down otherwise.

[Randy Chase]

I spent quite a bit of time a few years ago trying to come up with a practical plan for simulating the primary process. In the end, it seemed to me to be a project that would be more of a problem than its appeal would probably warrant.

First, one nice thing about the general election is that the rules and structure are etched in stone. They aren't going to be changed by the whim of either party.

And the whole political market is small enough that its hard to justify the long-term investment in development of an election sim without further branching out into a subset of that market. (And I'm personally convinced that to do it right, a primary game would need to be a seperate game from a general election sim. They are just really two totally different critters.)

As for your comments on third-party candidates in the Doonesbury game, I'll have to look back over the data. I think the only one that I recall feeling was really over-rated was Colin Powell. And I threw him in at the end when Mindscape made me take out Rush Limbaugh because he was threatening to sue us. And he probably didn't get enough testing.)

[Taft]

I am glad to hear that the idea of a primary game has been considered, and I fully understand the hassle that it could be. Momentum would be difficult to simulate, as would the order of primaries(always shifting).

As to the third party candidates, David Duke could do very well in the popular vote if left to his own devices in Power Politics(1992). He could either pull close to 15% nationally, or win about 5 Southern states, depending on his strategy. At the moment, I can't recall how he did in Doonesbury, or if he was even included(I had a slight problem running Doonesbury's 12-week campaign which limited my options there; Power Politics ran well, so I usually deferred to it).