"When I am virtual president ..."
My latest column for Slate is out -- and in this one, I review four video games that let you run your own US presidential campaign. In my preamble:
As Steven Johnson wrote last year, it's hard to believe that election sims didn't exist sooner. Running a campaign isn't that much different from running a football team or a battle squadron, and video games already do a superb job of modeling that stuff. In the four games I tried, strategy—moving your team around, allocating resources—was more important than the issues. Mostly, I got some practice gazing lustfully at vote-rich states like Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Playing as Kerry in one round of Political Machine, I won the popular vote but lost the election.
You can read the full review here for free! And as always, if you have any thoughts, feel free to post 'em in The Fray, Slate's online forum.
Posted by Clive Thompson at October 19, 2004 11:00 AM
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Great article, Clive. I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic about playing any of these games before, but now I've got a hankering to check out Political Machine.
Posted by: Walter at October 19, 2004 8:09 PM
Posted by: Clive at October 19, 2004 8:19 PM
Election sims have actually been around for quite a while but never gained much popularity until this election cycle. The earliest one I'm aware of is President Elect from 1988.
Posted by: Donald Melanson at October 20, 2004 1:04 PM
hmm, if power corrupts, does virtual power corrupt virtually?
Posted by: Joel Collier at October 21, 2004 12:32 PM
Heh. Good question.
Yep, Daniel, you're right -- they've existed before. I wrote imprecisely in the piece; what I meant to say is that election games have never existed in the volume that they have for this election, where there are more than a half-dozen titles out there.
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Great article, Clive. I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic about playing any of these games before, but now I've got a hankering to check out Political Machine.
Posted by: Walter at October 19, 2004 8:09 PM
Cool!
Posted by: Clive at October 19, 2004 8:19 PM
Election sims have actually been around for quite a while but never gained much popularity until this election cycle. The earliest one I'm aware of is President Elect from 1988.
Posted by: Donald Melanson at October 20, 2004 1:04 PM
hmm, if power corrupts, does virtual power corrupt virtually?
Posted by: Joel Collier at October 21, 2004 12:32 PM
Heh. Good question.
Yep, Daniel, you're right -- they've existed before. I wrote imprecisely in the piece; what I meant to say is that election games have never existed in the volume that they have for this election, where there are more than a half-dozen titles out there.
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