This must be the day for apparel items which mash up Nintendo themes with November's presidential election.

Earlier today we mentioned the Mario-Luigi '08 T-shirt.

A few moments ago we stumbled upon this Obama 1up for America hat. It's offered at Leftique, which describes itself as "The boutique for Democrats."

GP: FYI, we have no affiliate relationship with either of these products.

We noticed this T-shirt at Think Geek and, well, since it's Election Year and this is GamePolitics, we just had to mention it.

All I can say is that my choice in November just got a lot more complicated...

Decent games about the political process are few and far between, but Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations II) will release The Political Machine 2008, a turn-based election strategy sim for PC, on June 18th.

And, while real politics is an expensive business, the virtual kind is relatively cheap. The Political Machine 2008 retails for a mere $19.95.

Over at GameSpot, Jon Miller, who played as manager of Barack Obama's simulated campaign, has a detailed preview:

In The Political Machine, one turn breaks down to one week. The amount of stamina your candidate has limits the number of actions you can perform for each turn. Early on, the country is one giant mass of undecided voters, and it's your goal as campaign manager to sway them with lofty campaign promises...as well as blatant negative campaigning...

 

Of course, no election is complete without fundraising. Each action in the game, even flying from one state to another, will drain your campaign budget. If you have enough stamina, it helps to hit the fundraiser button, especially in wealthy states loyal to your party. Obama cleaned up in California and New York, routinely bringing in more than $200,000 per fundraiser, but he floundered in South Dakota where he raised only $6,000.

 

And so the campaign season goes... The Political Machine 2008 is not the most complicated strategy game out there, but it's a fun, lighthearted look at American politics.

GP: I enjoyed the last version of the game (2004), and can't wait to get my hands on this one.

Feel like starting an office pool?

MSNBC has unveiled an interactive online game which lets players make their best guesses about who Republican presidential candidate John McCain will select as his running mate.

Republican Veepstakes uses an NCAA Tournament-style bracket system that calculates player votes and advances winning candidates to the next round during weekly Tuesday updates.

32 candidates are listed for the starting round. These include well-known Republicans from politics (Mitt Romney, Charlie Crist), big business (Meg Whitman, Michael Dell) and the military (Gen. David Petraeus). We also note that Texas Gov. Rick Perry, scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at E3, is paired against former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in Round One.

The game is hosted by MSNBC's Chuck Todd and David Gregory and will run through June 24th.

Big Head DC reports that a Barack Obama Mii is a hugely popular download for owners of the Nintendo Wii:

Barack Obama gets around. His Mii, a digital avatar created for the Wii video game console, is currently one of the most popular user-submitted Mii caricatures in all of America. Obama is next to Batman in popularity and stands tall right behind Indiana Jones.

 

Speeches is listed as Obama’s skill.

 

An 11-year-old Kentucky boy sold his bicycle and his video game collection in order to raise money for Senator Hillary Clinton's flagging presidential campaign, according to the Associated Press.

Dalton Hatfield presented a check for $440 to former president Bill Clinton on Friday following a campaign rally in West Virginia:

“You sold your bike to get this?” [President] Clinton asked the McAndrews, Ky. native...

Hatfield feels so strongly that Hillary Clinton should be the next president he not only sold his bicycle, but video games and anything else he could find that “I could make money with” to donate to the former first lady’s bid for the Democratic nomination.

Barack Obama may have dissed Grand Theft Auto IV a bit last week, but, on the streets of L.A. at least, the candidate and the controversial game have become one.

G4TV's Attack of the Show producer Luke Wahl spotted some Barack Obama / GTA IV mashups around town:

Here in the GamePolitics command bunker we've grown weary of this campaign season's unending parade of online fighting games featuring presidential candidates.

And so too, apparently, has the Wonkette. While the Washington, D.C. gossip blog's criticism applies in particular to the NY Posts's 2008 Democratic Fight Night, the same commentary could be applied across board to the cheezy, online marriage of politics and martial arts.

Hey look, the New York Post has created an online video game where you can beat the shit out of Hillary Clinton! All you have to do is select a character and then click your mouse forever.

At a campaign stop in Indiana, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama referred to the frenzy of publicity surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV as he repeated one of his regular themes: kids studying more and playing video games less. 

GamePolitics has covered similar comments from the Illinois Senator during the campaign (see: Obama Campaign Theme: Video Games as Metaphor for Underachievement).

Here is the transcript of Obama's remarks:

I was just catching the news this morning about Grand Theft Auto, this video game, which is gonna break all records and make goo-gobs of money for whoever designed it. Now, this isn't intended for kids, although I promise you there are kids who are playing it, but these video games are raising our kids...

Across the board, middle-class, upper-class, working-class kids, they're spending a huge amount of their time not on their studies, but on entertainment.

And so part of our job is going to have to be to inspire the entire country to say, 'How are we giving our kids a thirst for knowledge?' And turning off the TV set, and getting them to be engaged and interested, like their future really does matter on how well they do in school."

Raw Story has the video.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics reader Ryan Graff for the transcription of Sen. Obama's comments!!

Game With a Brain asks:

What if politics were more like Pokemon?  Well, one of the political parties would be guided by Meowth and Mew would be the equivalent of a Mount Rushmore type president, right? 

The short article is accompanied by a must-see Pokemon parody animation which employs the three major US presidential candidates instead of standard Pokemon characters.

If you've played the popular handheld game, you'll recognize the parody's visual style as spot-on. 

Irrepressible Gamecock Media Group CEO Mike Wilson was in Philadelphia on Tuesday as the hoopla surrounding this week's Democratic Pennsylvania primary reached its peak.

Wilson and his crew were on hand to promote the soon-to-be-released Hail to the Chimp. Described as a "Presidential Party Game," Hail to the Chimp was developed by Wideload Games and will be published by Gamecock for Xbox 360 and PS3 on May 27th.

In the pic at left, one of the game's characters is shown with the famed Rocky statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Politics, as the saying goes, makes strange bedfellows.

And there could be none stranger than seeing Hillary Clinton, who has long decried violence in video games, cozying up to the pro wrestling crowd with a tongue-in-cheek campaign promise that, if elected, she will deliver "the people's elbow" when things get rough.

Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all appeared in taped WWE promos last night. Obama seemed uncomfortable, cracking only a "Do you smell what Barack is cookin'?" joke toward the end of his remarks.

Clinton's video was more enjoyable, if for no other reason than because it was such a departure from her normally aloof public persona. But, "Call me Hillrod?" A bit much...

John McCain's performance was funny ...and a little scary:

You want to pull out of Iraq? Well I say, no surrender... I'm gonna introduce Osama bin Laden to The Undertaker... [Americans] watch WWE because wrestling is about celebrating our freedom...

Watching these videos brings a few video game-related points to mind:

First, will we ever see major candidates making official appearances within a video game, or even at a video game event?

Second, why is WWE, with its real-life violence, steroid abuse issues, and hyper-sexualized "diva" wrestlers an acceptable venue for presidential candidates while video games are, apparently, not?

Finally, if one of these candidates goes after video game violence in the future, whether as president or as a member of the Senate, they need to be reminded of their political pandering to the wrestling audience.

Today's crucial Pennsylvania primary will surely be nothing like this over-the-top WWE video of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton facing one another in the wrestling ring...



UPDATE: Wired reports that game publisher THQ created the Clinton-Obama wrestling animations...

Last week GamePolitics reported on virtual clashes between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters which have been occurring within Second Life.

Today we have an ABC News video report on how a Chicago attorney is using Second Life to support his Obama, his candidate of choice.



Via: Tropophilia 

The Democratic presidential nomination could turn on tomorrow's primary in Pennsylvania. And while both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have had their issues with video games, this campaign has far deeper ramifications.

As a Keystone State resident, I can assure you that the candidates are working overtime with appearances, rallies and the like. And phone calls...

Here at GPHQ we've received about a dozen calls since last week, evenly divided between the Clinton and Obama camps. Phone calls from volunteers, recorded messages from candidates, and even one from Bill Clinton.

So we're running a poll today and tomorrow to ask GamePolitics readers who they think will win in Pennsylvania.

Be sure to vote!

As the crucial Pennsylvania primary draws near, competition between Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is heating up in real life as well as Second Life's virtual world.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, SL's Obama and Clinton supporters have been griefing one another of late:

The trouble began in March 2007, when Obama supporters held a rally... [other avatars] raided the virtual Obama headquarters. They littered it with T-shirts, posters and signs sporting anti-Obama messages or expressing support for Sen. Clinton and Republican contender Rep. Ron Paul...

During a November rally at the unofficial virtual Clinton beachfront headquarters, supposed Obama supporters hid under a dock and then emerged with signs, shouting via connected headsets and shooting at people... it's unclear if the disruptors were actually from the Obama camp...

Last month, virtual gunmen disrupted a planned Obama march, shooting and pushing people around. That knocked some marchers offline... The Obama group responded by teleporting... to the CNN hub... to hold their rally. But soon images of a Clinton campaign poster and a clip of Sen. Obama next to a photo of Osama bin Laden were flying all over the screen...

Bonnie Ruberg's recent Heroine Sheik post, which detailed her quandary over just how important the video game censorship issue would be when she casts her presidential vote, got us thinking, too.

What, for instance, will GP do? (and I've got to decide quickly, because the Pennsylvania primary is just eight days away)...

More importantly, what will you do?

Given the situation with Iraq, with the economy, with environmental issues, with Homeland Security, with energy, the credit crisis, the housing market, etc., will your choice come down to a candidate's stance on video game issues?

How do we place video game issues in their proper context?

We'd like to know what you think.

Make your opinion known by voting in today's GamePolitics poll, located in the upper right sidebar, and feel free to offer additional thoughts by commenting to this post.

According to blog site The Fhiz, a Green Party candidate for president has linked violent video games and television programs to school shootings.

The unconfirmed news comes by way of a blog entry detailing an appearance by candidate Jesse Johnson (left) at the annual convention of the Green Party of New Jersey (GPNJ) on March 29th. From The Fhiz's report:

The convention itself was pretty boring... After going over minutes and proposals, one of the Green Party’s presidential candidates, Jesse Johnson... spoke. While I give the guy credit for being able to deliver a speech... his impassioned talk of his accomplishments in environmentalism in native West Virginia and outline for new efficient energy production... failed to impress.

...At least he had a Q&A session afterward. At least, that would have meant something if he didn’t utterly blow it. When asked about violence and funding in relation to urban schools, he very obviously dodged the question, taking the Jack Thompson road of blaming television and video games for school shootings (try parents?) and flat out admitting he didn’t know anything about how schools were funded in NJ.

When you cast your ballot for the next president, will the candidate's stance on video game issues decide your vote?

It's a worthy question, and one that Bonnie Ruberg of Heroine Sheik asks herself:

The [presidential] primaries are front-page news even here [in France], and there’s a big election coming up in my home state of Pennsylvania, so French people always want to know, “Do you support Hilary or Obama?” Truth is though, I honestly don’t know...

When I try to explain my dilemma to a French person though, I always find myself falling back on the “Hilary wants to censor video games” angle though. And what do I get in response? Awkward stares that say, “You wouldn’t really vote for someone on the basis of video games, would you?”

The question is, would I? ...I really do think Hillary’s approach could be detrimental to our art form–especially if she’s the leader of the whole frickin’ country... Then again, Obama is no shiny light of tech positivism either. Al Gore, I miss you.

Although the only notice we've taken of World of Warcraft in relation to the U.S. presidential election was an unoffical rally for Republican Ron Paul (left) in January, USA Today reports that WoW is a hotbed of presidential politics - especially on the Democratic side:

The primary race between Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is so competitive, it has even barged into the online universe of the World of Warcraft game. Millions of players are supposed to be fighting dragons, raiding enemies and performing magical quests — not discussing superdelegates.

USA Today quotes 36-year-old WoW devotee Sean Goldman:

Here we are, logging into a virtual world to escape the grip of the real world for a few hours, but this election has brought the real world closer to the virtual world...

Hillary and Obama have created quite the buzz with the race, and it's created a buzz everywhere. I'd say 99% of the people talking about this (in the game) are the types who would usually stay away from talking politics because it wasn't cool. But now it's definitely roused a lot of people in World of Warcraft.

Whack-a-mole, boxing and martial arts knock-offs?

Sigh... 

Can't web designers come up with more innovative game metaphors for the presidential race?

In any case, we take note of Political Boxing at anti-Hillary Clinton site StopHerNow. The domain appears to be privately registered, so we're not sure whether the site was created by Obama supporters, Republicans, or some other group.

Sen. Hillary Clinton's struggling campaign has taken a credibility hit over recent revelations that she misspoke about arriving in Bosnia under sniper fire in 1996.

Did you doubt for a moment that a video game version would be far behind?



Via: RatTube

While GP prattles on about the politics of video games, there are precious few games that are actually about politics.

So it's great to see that Stardock has released The Political Machine 2008 (PC, $19.95). We thoroughly enjoyed the original, which covered the 2004 election cycle. From the game's website:

Each player has two major political resources, capital and money. What they do with these two resources depends on the strategy employed.  Each candidate has a number of traits that provide them with strengths and weaknesses such as charisma, stamina, integrity, intelligence, and position on the issues...

So GP got this e-mail last evening from the Hillary Clinton campaign. It ran under the headline:

Liberty City Democratic Club Endorses Hillary Clinton

Wait, we thought.. That can't be right. Hillary is most game-legislating of all the presidential candidates and Liberty City, well, that's Grand Theft Auto territory.

As it turns out, this Liberty City group is a political club for the LGBT community in Pennsylvania, where the April 22nd primary is looking more and more like a make-or-break situation for Clinton and opponent Barack Obama.

UPDATE: I've been thinking... GTA IV launches in a month. Hillary has had a lot to say about GTA in the past, especially in regard to Hot Coffee. April Fool's Day is next Tuesday. Still, the group's website looks legit and so does its domain registration. What do you think, GP readers?

Although Ron Paul's presidential hopes are rapidly fading, ConnieTalk reports that a group of "grassroots artists" have released an impressive, minute-long, video game-like commercial for the upstart Republican:
 

The spot--which looks like any scene from a high-quality, modern video game--utilizes portions of Ron Paul's past speeches, combined with high end computer animation and moving graphics to create scenes where a 3-D Ron Paul emerges from water, is surrounded by doves, is standing amongst money flying up into the air, and even appearing next to the founding fathers of the Constitution...

 

The project... took 3 months to create the 60-second feature, which Chris Rye's American Liberty Coalition PAC hopes to air in Pennsylvania leading up to PA's April 22nd primary.

 

First of all, who even knew that Rock, Paper, Scissors had an "official governing body?"

Not me, certainly.

But the USARPS, which lays claim to that title, has jumped into the ever-widening pool of presidential campaign-themed, quickie online games with Barack, Paper, Scissors. A press release from the USARPS describes the game thusly:

The interactive Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) application pits Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama against five opponents on his way to the Oval Office. 

Players control the actions of Barack Obama as he competes against President George W. Bush, Senator Hillary Clinton, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (let’s see how his foreign policy holds up…) and of course, Senator John McCain.

USARPS league commissioner Matti Leshem perhaps overstates the case a bit when she says:

No sport in the world is as closely linked to democracy as Rock Paper Scissors. Every game of RPS is like its own mini election where players assert their freedom by choosing the throw that’s right for them.  And there’s never a need for a recount… though it is possible to tie!

Although Barack Obama's name is used in the game's title, Leshem said that shouldn't be considered an endorsement:

For us, it’s about finding the best way to promote democracy. Mr. and Mrs. Obama were kind enough to incorporate one of our throws in their son’s name. Frankly if ‘John McScissors’ or ‘Papery Clinton’ were running, we could easily have chosen them as the protagonist of the game.

GP: No favoritism in official Rock, Paper, Scissors play - that's reassuring...

After bowing out of the Republican presidential race, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee retired to Little Rock where he accepted condolences from President Bush and decompressed by playing Rock Band.

As reported by the National Journal's Hotline blog:

Huckabee spoke to President Bush and many of his supporters... before hosting his entire campaign staff at his home for lasagna and video games...

 

Huckabee said he originally intended to cook ribs for his staff, but that they would have required nine hours to cook. So several tins of lasagna ably substituted. Staffers gathered in the basement to play Rock Band and hold a final team meeting.

As GamePolitics reported last September, Huckabee has also been known to try his hand at Guitar Hero. He's actually a pretty darned good real-world guitarist as well and plays in a band called Capitol Offense.

GP: Yes, that's a Guitar Hero controller... No time to PhotoShop one from Rock Band...

GameDaily BIZ serves up a lengthy interview with ESA CEO Mike Gallagher (left). It's definitely worth a read as the first-year CEO dishes on a number of topics, starting with piracy:
 

For video games, [piracy is] a $3 billion issue, and that's from an industry that has $9.5 billion dollars in sales. That's a huge amount of leakage... and it's only going to grow as broadband speeds increase and as the hackers are more adept at circumventing [console] security preventions. It's already just a disaster in the PC space...

 

How do we send the message?... we have an anti-piracy division within ESA... it works on enforcement very aggressively... we're going after the sources of the material in Malaysia, Uruguay, and Mexico. We're working together in Canada... North Korea... We're also collaborating for the first time with MPAA...

Gallagher also mentioned last summer's controversial Homeland Security raids on mod chip dealers inside the United States:
 

Domestically, we had a sting where we used 20 different locations, 16 different U.S. Attorney offices, which simultaneously busted a network of traffickers of pirated goods here in the United States.

GamePolitics was among those which questioned the ESA's radio silence on Fox News' January smear of Mass Effect. Gallagher spoke about why the ESA held back:
 

We have to be careful as an association that represents the entire industry, that our activities relative to specific companies and specific titles are very carefully selected. We certainly support the thrust of the industry activities and the reaction of the video gaming community to the distortion that Fox published...

Gallagher acknowledged the clout wielded by game consumers in the Mass Effect episode:
 

They pay attention, they are vocal, they are digital... they are heard immediately... That same power is what we want to harness when it comes to influencing policy makers. Policy makers are very gun shy about the Internet... they fear it because its mobilizing capabilities are outside their comfortable zones...

The ESA head diplomatically side-stepped GDB's question about how the industry viewed the current field of presidential candidates:
 

[The candidates] love technology, they love high tech jobs, they all worry about the economy... So we're going to focus on those and make sure that our profile as an industry is known to those campaigns... but the cultural aspect of video games, the historical [political] football nature of the industry in the presidential space means we have to be vigilant. I don't necessarily see the risk being something we can look past with any of the candidates...

Asked about a threat by watchdog group the Parents Television Council to target candidates who accept campaign contributions from the ESA's new political action committee, Gallaher was dismissive:
 

How many voices have you heard? The one. What we've heard in the meantime from other sources is many, many voices saying, "It's about time [that the industry began contributing.]" And the politicians, our policy makers in this country, will be very appreciative of our industry's support...

 

Yesterday's Barack Obama story on GamePolitics (see: Obama Campaign Theme: Video Games as Metaphor for Underachievement) generated a good bit of controversy.

Obama is, after all, a popular figure among younger voters. And that age group is also more likely to enjoy video games than, say, supporters of the 71-year-old John McCain.

Fordam prof Paul Levinson (left), a self-avowed Obama supporter, picks up on the candidate's dissing of games on his Infinite Regress blog:

I'm an Obama supporter, but... that doesn't mean I agree with everything he says. One thing I disagreed with in his excellent speech last night after the Wisconsin primary was his swipe at television and video games... 

Just look at the enormous success of Obama's campaign so far. One of its spearheads are high school and college students, and recent grads, who are for the first time in recent history being drawn into the active political process by Obama's revolutionizing message.

In other words, at a time when television viewing - if you add in cable and YouTube - is burgeoning, as is the playing of video games, we find people in their teens and twenties more politically involved than ever before.

Unlike rival Hillary Clinton,  Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama does not have a significant track record with regard to video game content issues.

His speeches, however, often contain a reference to parents making their children "put away the video games." For Obama, video games seem to serve as a sort of metaphor for underachievement.

The Illinois senator repeated the theme last night in a victory speech following his big win over Clinton in the Wisconsin primary. As reported by the Washington Post, which carried a transcript and video of the speech, Obama said:

I know how hard it will be to alleviate poverty that has built up over centuries, how hard it will be to fix schools, because changing our schools will require not just money, but a change in attitudes.

We're going to have to parent better, and turn off the television set, and put the video games away, and instill a sense of excellence in our children, and that's going to take some time.

A day earlier, speaking to a college crowd in Youngstown, Ohio,  Obama made similar remarks. The Youngstown Vindicator reports:

[Obama called for] investments in early childhood education to close the achievement gap, but with an added emphasis on poetry, music and art, not just academics. Obama admonished parents to do their part by turning off the television, putting away the video games, and instilling in their children a desire to get a good education.

Nor is this a new theme for Obama. GamePolitics reported on similar comments as far back as April, 2006.