Gaming the Vote!

Chase says that the goal of Power Politics III wasn't to duplicate real-world detail, but "to provide a playing challenge that encourages the player to evaluate the political landscape." "What I want is to capture the feel of a Presidential campaign and to give the player some insight into the thinking and strategy that is involved in the process of 'marketing' a Presidential candidate. I believe in the concept of 'activism software.' I think you can design a game that is entertaining, but that also stimulates players to think about the real world surrounding them. I'm not as concerned with teaching players how the world works in perfect detail as I am in coaxing them into thinking about how it works."

Schoolhouse Vote

Schuytema says that Lantern Games developed Frontrunner with the idea that it could be used as a classroom resource for teaching elections, with the additional benefit of familiarizing kids with geography, civics, and political issues. Gastil uses Election Day as an extra credit assignment in the political science and communications classes he teaches at the University of Washington, where he's an Associate Professor in the Department of Communications. But he also sees a definite civic and political value. "I think playing the game makes people smarter citizens," he says. "Every person's vote counts, but if you really want to have your voice heard, you need to work on campaigns. Playing Election Day makes you a better campaign volunteer."


The educational value of election games is indisputable, and not just as a means of learning about the political process. Borgoyne says that President Forever has been used in universities to study group dynamics by turning students into campaign teams. It's sort of like using cooperative multiplayer gaming for its psychological insight.

But M.I.T.'s Jenkins puts elections games in a grander cultural and political context. He sees them as part of a new interaction between politics and media.

"This represents the logical next step in developments which have shaped the social status of games over the past decade -- from public concern after Columbine and the attempt to argue that games have no First Amendment status because they don't express ideas to an explosion of new uses of games as vehicles for exploring the world around us," says Jenkins. "I see the Gulf War as a turning point where people on both sides of the war saw games as vehicles for expressing their world views. The campaigns have only consolidated the idea that games are an important mode of political speech." As such, election games bring democracy down to what he calls "a micro-level."