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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Presidential Gaming - A Political Machine? 33

Posted by simoniker from the tanner-88 dept.
Thanks to Blue's News for pointing to a Stardock press release discussing the announcement of a new PC strategy game based on running a U.S. Presidential campaign. An official site for The Political Machine has already been launched, with info on the game "in which you are the campaign manager for a candidate for President of the United States. Choose a political party, put together the dream presidential ticket and go for it." The title, from the developers of the niche favorite Galactic Civilizations, will debut via public Beta on the Steam-like Drengin gaming network on April 8th, and is due in stores this June.
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Presidential Gaming - A Political Machine? More

Presidential Gaming - A Political Machine?

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  • Civilization Required for Presidents... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MalaclypseTheYounger ( 726934 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @07:24AM (#8724071) Journal
    I recently dusted off my copy of Civilization III and have been playing it day-in and day-out for the past couple weeks. While it does not cover every aspect of a kingdom, country, or government, it certainly teaches you a lot about handling your people, keeping people happy, HANDLING BUDGETS, and a teeny bit about war (and the effects thereof on your people).

    It would never happen, but I think it'd be great to require presidential candidates to be required to sit down for an extended CIV session (8-16 hours, maybe more?) and play against one another in a televised CIV game, with color commentary. You could see how each candidate chooses to run their kingdom, how 'happy' they keep their citizens, how easily they succumb to waging war to get what they want, etc.

    (offtopic? sorry...)
    • Too bad each Civilization game turn takes between one to forty years.

      The year is 1795 and the people of New York are angry. Next turn, its now 1800 people are happy again with no damage whatsoever to the city over that five YEAR period.

      Reality sim Civilization isn't. Last time I checked Modern Tanks don't lose to Aztec Riflemen Concripts either, nor does the declaration of war cause an entire nation to grind to a halt due to widespread riots. For a 13 year old looking to learn basic managing skills, sure.

      • I agree with the time passing part. If you notice however, starting at year 1900 I believe each turn lasts only 1 year. I'm not so much interested in year-to-year handling of their nation, but HOW they handle it. And who cares about building Spearmen and stuff, let them start off with today's technology, and see where they take it.

        Declaration of war doesn't cause MY civilization to grind to a halt. But staying at war for 20 years does. Look at Vietnam, and the effect that had on the US in dragging tha
        • And who cares about building Spearmen and stuff, let them start off with today's technology, and see where they take it.

          Actually I tried that before. I built up my empire and then waited an extra 50 turns, insulted them so they would form an alliance (coalition?) against me, and then had them declare war on me. After breaking through their main force of Infantry (the best defender before Mech. Infantry) I demolished their Modern Tanks with Cruise Missles and rolled into Rome facing... over a dozen outdate

    • It would never happen, but I think it'd be great to require presidential candidates to be required to sit down for an extended CIV session (8-16 hours, maybe more?) and play against one another in a televised CIV game, with color commentary. You could see how each candidate chooses to run their kingdom, how 'happy' they keep their citizens, how easily they succumb to waging war to get what they want, etc.

      This was actually suggested in the strategy guide for the first Civilization game. I would have liked

    • > I think it'd be great to require presidential candidates...to sit down for an extended CIV session

      I'm sure they'll all need to download the newest mods first:

      -Quiet Backroom Handshake
      -Golfing with CEO's
      & the Old White Men with Old White Money Conversion Kit.
  • Wont Nader like this? Finaly! His moment of triumph!

  • games like these should be banned! (Score:4, Funny)

    by sofar ( 317980 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @07:58AM (#8724221) Homepage
    I think this a repulsive idea, I hope people will see that making these games is anti-socal, demoralizing and would severely degrade the public moral for supporting democracy.

    Please don't expose our children to these games as they will be filled with lies, mudthrowing and other subhuman activities. Last they will promote fraud and abuse of power. We cannot let this ruin our society!!!

    Please let our kids not play games in which they have to wage wars to win the next elections, lie to their own people, abuse their money and meanwhile take their jobs away. This is a slap in the face of democracy!
    • "Furthermore, this is the most arrogant, inept, reckless, most ideological foreign gaming idea in the history of our country, and I for one will not stand for it!"

      Here's the back cover of a game like this:

      1) Simple Sounds. Just repeat the same phrase over and over (see above) about 3,000 times.
      2) Simple People. Woo idiots over with your stupid ideas and boring rhetoric as you talk about how the other side is responsible for all the problems of the world.
      3) Or play a third party candidate, and watch your h
      • ) not answer their question, B) not answer their question, C) not answer their question but make a joke, or D) not answer their question and use that time to ridicule the opposition.

        Brit Hume: Senator Kerry, what do you have to say about accusations that you have taken both sides in the war issue?

        Kerry: As the American people are divided on the Iraq war, my votes for it and against it clearly reflect the public view.

        Brit Hume: Mr. Buchanan, what do you think of the gay marriage issue?

        Buchanan: Brit, th
    • Wow, and here I was thinking the game was a little soft to really be grounded in reality!

  • Cheat codes? (Score:4, Funny)

    by SansTinfoilHat ( 759207 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @08:18AM (#8724314)
    Is there a cheat code that lets you win Florida? ::ducks::

  • Ooh, look, it's President Elect (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mukaikubo ( 724906 ) <gtg430b.prism@gatech@edu> on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @08:20AM (#8724324) Journal
    Fun old DOS game, it's over on The Underdogs. What's extremely fun is making both major candidates utter incompetents without a shred of charisma (compared to the guys I'd make, Al Gore was a suave sophisticate) and making myself a godlike 3rd party candidate. And still, well, losing.

  • Is this a MMORPG? (Score:3, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @09:54AM (#8725082)
    Can I play one of the Bush twins?
  • ...then the gameplay should be responsive to what fans request. Not sure how much fun the game will be, but they have a great track report with interacting with users, and responding to their requests.

    Assuming of course, it actually is them. They spend so much time responding, I'm not sure how they get any real work done on the software. Maybe they've got the AI from galciv answering?

  • Dark Horse (Score:2, Informative)

    by Joe U ( 443617 )
    Does anyone remember the old MSNBC web game Dark Horse, where you ran a presidential campaign?

    Granted, this will be more complex. Either way, it's good to see Pol/Econ turn based games becoming more popular again.

  • President Forever (Score:3, Informative)

    by viware ( 680138 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @10:55AM (#8725599)
    Theres already a good game out like this, called President Forever [presidentforever.com].
    It's super fun and complicated. Pretty much pure strategy. There's a demo to try it out on the website!
  • Very simple... Choose a single platform, and stick to it... such as the following platform: "Should I win, all of the money in the treasury will go to the people who create electronic voting machines, and thier families" ...and you are bound to win. People admire such focused ideals, and will vote for you. In fact, with such a platform, when the polls were tallied up, I can't imagine even a single person in the universe who would vote against you.
  • In an old (old old old) issue of Nintendo Power, in a feature on Japanese games, an NES/Famicom game was featured that simulated the presidential campaign and election processes. The candidates were obvious clones of current political figures (I seem to remember "George Push" (Senior)), but also included at least one female candidate and I believe some minorities. I think everyone who saw the blurb, myself included, must have marveled that the Japanese public would be so interested in the US political pro
  • A game about real politics! I've wanted office porn in a game for years!
  • I'd guess this is a mod (perhaps heavy mod) on top of Stardocks hit from a few years ago called Entrepeneur. Reading the description, many of the facets are similar. This isn't a knock on the upcoming game in any fashion. In some ways, it's a plus, as the underlying design has been proven.

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