Smart People and Political Videogames

Another quick look, this time at blogs and smart folk who talk about videogames in relation to the campaign.

We’ll start off today’s post with something a little light.

Despite the humor of the piece, the editorial goes a small way to showing that there is a growing field of research into how videogames work as commentary on life, especially in a political environment.

As previously mentioned, Water Cooler Games is dedicated to such a research.

Popular videogame website Gamespot recently had a fantastic feature on the growing academic field of videogames.

Ludology.org is another blog that looks at games in the same context. The advantage of Ludology.org is the ability to cross-reference papers and websites on gaming. Many of their papers, such as Videogames of the Oppressed, deal with issues directly relating to using videogames to promote beliefs.

Recently, they reported on Videogames With an Agenda, an on and off-line art exhibit looking at games used as a form of political and social activism.

The International Game Developers Association is another great source for research into games. The essay Ideological Videogames by Gonzalo Frasca brings up the concept that on-line media, especially games, are good for promoting political views as they are both appealing to the eye and easy to spread.

Frasca also wrote a longer piece called Playing for the White House about the changing political climate and how it caters to a new generation. Frasca proposes that as videogames mature as a medium, they will grow to gain a prominence in campaigns similar to television ads and documentaries.

Frasca’s not the only expert in the field. Justin Hall is a media critic that occasionally writes about games on his co-edited website Game Girl Advance. They even have a specific politics section(warning: shameless plug to Lightspin on the site).

Game Journalism is another useful resource. They often write articles such as this on the government producing videogames. This is a great place to check for new updates on the more independent scene of gaming, a producer of games such as Activism.

Finally, Social Impact Games is a blog that comments on games and gaming events that specifically work towards social activism.

Hopefully these sites give a bit of background to all the craziness we’ve presented so far.

Get Your Campaign Game On

A quick overview of Internet content relating to the campaign

Seeing as the election is quickly approaching, we thought it’d be prudent to list a few of the more popular sites that deal with Internet content related to the 2004 campaign.

There has been buzz about Persuasive Games recently. The company initially gained fame for their Dean for America game sponsored by – what else – Dean for America.

Hoowever, much greater recent interest has been from their two new releases: Take Back Illinois and Activism. Both of these games focus on using resources in order to get constituents active in their political climate. Both games are worth checking out, especially considering their funding.

While both developed by Persuasive Games, Activism was funded by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Take Back Illinois by the Illinois House Republican Committee.

Persuasive Games is run by Ian Bogost and Gonzalo Frasca, the same people who run Water Cooler Games, a blog that looks at games in the context of politics, advertising, and advocacy. Worth a look, especially in relation to Lightspin.

Newsgaming is also worth looking at for your political gaming needs. While less active than Persuasive, Newsgaming does feature September 12th which, after its release September 2003, helped kick start the trend of more political games.

The Political Machine is a popular election game that lets you run a political campaign against either computers or other opponents on-line. In fact, it’s one of few main-stream election games offered in a retail market.

Previously mentioned on Lightspin before – is Lunagames’ Election 2004. Although similar to The Political Machine, Election 2004 is simpler and lacks human against human play. However, being a game for cell-phones, it is worth noting that it lets you take the election on the go.

If running a campaign is too much of a hassle, there’s also Bush vs. Kerry Boxing from Sorrent. This cell-phone game allows players to box against various political figures from both sides of the campaign.

Naturally, not all the games are developed outside the parties.

As previously mentioned on Lightspin there are also the Kerry Corner and George W. Bush sites which feature games funded and created by the Republican party.

And, also mentioned, is Dem TV which takes the Democrat side to the games.

Although this isn’t all the content, these selections show the spectrum of what’s available out there and should give you a sampling.

After you get your taste of what’s out there, come back later for part two on what the critical side of the electronic entertainment campaign movement.