Politicians Playing Videogames

You’d hope they’d have more constructive things to be doing. Then again, everyone has to unwind somehow.

Tomous wrote:

a dan from grcade wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:Full disclosure - I have every intention of one day pursuing an actual research project for a scholarly article on the relationship between US politics and videogames one day, far into the future, so any examples I'm not aware of would be greatly appreciated!

See, now I think this is fascinating - but I'm absolutely not convinced by the effectiveness of it all. AOC playing Among Us is an example where I can see the tangible potential benefit, but this isn't just due to her playing a popular game - it's the way she's advertised this. She played the game with online "personalities" all of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers on various platforms, and she livestreamed the event. So I totally get that there is a potentially vast audience out there who might be interested in this content, who might not have otherwise voted (though if I'm being really cynical, I'm not convinced that becoming a "fan" of AOC through Among Us livestreaming will translate to voting for Joe Biden in November).

But Biden's island doesn't have the same impact. In my opinion, those who might visit are those who will have made their mind up on how to vote already (be that for Biden or Trump!) I don't think this is content that will be seen by those otherwise disinterested or disengaged from politics within the USA; as such, I can't see how this would possibly increase votes?

What about teenagers who aren't yet able to vote? Biden's Island might be connecting with kids at a time when their world view is forming. It might not be increasing votes now but it might winning over support for the long term. Just a thought-i have no idea on how much interest it has had.

Well this is the thing, isn't it? It's such an untried, untested method of engaging with potential voters that we simply don't know what the reaction, positive or negative, will be from the voting public, or even who will turn up at this island.

I don't know how AC:NH works at all, but here are some statistics to show why at least attempting to engage people via videogames is a smart strategic campaign move:

- The average age of the American gamer is around 35 years old
- Something like 65% of the voting age population - 165m people - identifies as regularly playing some form of video game
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold over 22 million copies worldwide. I can't find a breakdown of sales by region, but about one-third of Switch owners have the game, so if you cut the number of US switch owners up in the same manner, you can guess that roughly 7-8m people now own the game, at a variety of age ranges and political views, in the United States.

So potentially, you're looking at a huge amount of engagement with voting age people here. Assume that even a quarter of those 8m Animal Crossing owners are of legal voting age - that's more than the entire populations of Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota combined who can see the Biden campaign actively engaging with their hobby, actively looking to engage people at a grassroots level. Now of course, there's no guarantee that this will win votes in any way shape or form, but I find it very interesting that the moment seems to have come for politicians to enter the "virtual arena" if you like.

And I don't know where I stand on it, really. In principle I probably agree with Jawa - keep politicians away from my hobby - but equally, it's such a powerful and really untapped way of engaging with the electorate (and one that can give immediate feedback) that I'm genuinely amazed it's taken this long for any kind of effort to be made.

Apologies for going on a bit of a rant/tangent with this, well, entire thread, but I'm seeing a very strange collision of my interests here and it genuinely feels to me like there's a shift in the perception of videogames taking place before our eyes. It remains to be seen how positive that could be for the medium.

#AOC2024. Good idea re streaming imo, she's got an engaging personality and is not a "fake gamer".

Monkey Man wrote:

#AOC2024. Good idea re streaming imo, she's got an engaging personality and is not a "fake gamer".

Alas, she might not be old enough to file the papers - my understanding is you need to be 35, and she only turned 31 last week. I'm not sure if you need to be 35 at the time of election, or at the time you file to run.

Monkey Man wrote:

#AOC2024. Good idea re streaming imo, she's got an engaging personality and is not a "fake gamer".

I have a crush on AOC and Melania Trump.

I don't understand people's objections to politicians or activists being involved in the gaming space. Isn't this just a modern day equivalent to Rock the Vote?