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.
Computer security recourse: secureroot
Posted by: Garnett | May 21, 2004 at 05:36 AM