Political Games Forever

When looking for 2008 polling data for creating or editing your own scenarios with Campaigns Forever, there are several good sources.

One is Pollster.com, which uses data analysis to create some nice projections of where the percentages really are at any given time, while trying to filter out the noise of any given one poll. They also have some nice graphs which give you a feel for the 2008 election up to this point.

RealClearPolitics also tries to do this, with a more simple averaging approach. Both have their strengths.

Pollster.com also has a nice blog section, which is easy to miss, with analysis of polls and polling related discussion. This post, for example, has a nice discussion on what it will mean for early primary and caucuses polling given that they are just after the holiday break. Check it out!

I thought it would be fun to go through the TheorySpark political simulation games that have been released up to now. Here they are:

December 19th, 2003: President Forever 2004. The game that really started it all. ‘Nuff said.

June, 2004: Prime Minister Forever - Canada 2004. Our first parliamentary simulation game, this featured the ability to target ridings (the equivalent of districts, constituencies, or divisions in other political systems).

September, 2004: Prime Minister Forever - Australia 2004. Our first foray into politics in the southern hemisphere. First game to feature Australia’s Two Party Preference system (curious what that means? try it out!). Just as Australia’s animals are a little different, so are their politics.

April, 2005: Prime Minister Forever - British Version. Renamed from U.K. due to an unfortunate acronym. This game engine could accommodate the most districts yet, with Britain having over 600.

April, 2005: Premier Forever - British Columbia. A little provincial game. Fun.

August, 2005: Chancellor Forever. Our first non-English speaking version was released simultaneously (Kanzler Forever), it also featured the pretty neat German electoral system. (You can try it out here, or if you sprechen die Deutsche, here).

January, 2006: Prime Minister Forever - Canada 2006. Our first sequel within the parliamentary games. Expanded game engine. We never know when Canada will have another election, so this series keeps us on our toes.

October, 2006: President Forever 2008 + Primaries. Added primaries functionality, and a host of other features. This was our biggest single project ever, and much of the changes were ‘under the hood’ (that is, you can’t tell by looking at the game how much it actually has changed - hopefully, we’ll be able to demonstrate this more later).

June, 2007: Campaigns Forever for President Forever 2008 + Primaries. This was the first full campaign editor, made for the American game. It is what we use to make the official campaigns, but now anyone can make their own.

October, 2007: Prime Minister Forever - Australia 2007. Retained the 2004 game engine, but added a new 2007 scenario.

Next will be another important add-on for President Forever 2008 + Primaries, Multiplayer, which we will be announcing more details of very soon (right here).

Then look no further.

I have just finished playing President Forever 2008 + Primaries Multiplayer. It changes everything.

Playing a game against computer players in P4E8 is fun, but it isn’t exactly the most challenging experience anymore for me. It was like trying to rack up yet another really high high-score on Civilization II … “What, only 300% this time? Let’s try for 350% …”

We have recently completed 2-human-player multiplayer games for President Forever 2008 + Primaries Multiplayer (soon to be unlimited human players), and now everything has changed. Just adding 1 human opponent makes everything much more difficult. Your opponents are no longer predictable. Thought you could bank on dominating New Hampshire? Think again, as your human opponent maneuvers to slip in and steal it from you. You strain to determine your opponents’ strategies, trying to figure out what they’re focusing on and what they’re ignoring. Endorsements suddenly become an exercise in nerve-calming. “Okay, I’m almost there … almost have the endorsement … What? They plowed 5 PIPs at the last moment! Ugh!” And so on.

Probably the nicest new feature that comes in handy for multiplayer is the timing feature. Now the game host can decide how long each turn lasts. This makes for adrenalin-pounding turns, as you frenetically attempt to make those ads, get a good read on the latest polls and momentum numbers, create strategic footsoldiers, get in barnstorming, AND … What?! Next turn. Much more like the heat of a real campaign, where your decisions almost always are in the context of limited time.

Next up is seeing what it’s like playing with more than 2 human players … Will report back soon.

If you want to re-create the exact movements of all the candidates in the actual election, using a political game like President Forever 2008 + Primaries, this neat tool from the Washington Post’s politics section is very useful:

Washington Post’s Campaign Tracker

Here’s a screen capture of part of the Campaign Tracker:

By clicking the “Previous Day” and “Next Day” links on the tool, you can get political-event-by-political-event tracking for all the major candidates from both parties for the 2008 US Presidential election. It gets even better - you can click the “2007″ link just below “Campaign Tracker” (or the “Date” link to the right of “Campaign Tracker”) and it will show you a calendar with all political events from January 2007 all the way to (scheduled) December 2007. It even lists which candidates ‘Rested’, to use the President Forever game term.

There’s more. Lots more. Continued …

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As speculated on in this previous post, “Fred Thompson and the Political Game Called Intrade”, Fred Thompson has now been surpassed by Ron Paul, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee on Intrade. Here are the latest numbers:

(Although Thompson is listed above McCain and Huckabee, their last trade numbers are above his.)

This continues the dramatic trend discussed in that previous post.

So what’s happened? …

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Things are starting to heat up in politics in Australia. So we have released Prime Minister Forever - Australia 2007, for the impending Australian election November 24th, 2007. Existing owners of Prime Minister Forever - Australia can download the 2007 scenario for free from here (includes installation instructions).

Here is a screenshot from an Australia 2007 game in progress:

(click here to see the full-size image)

The game scenario starts on October 17th. If you’re interested in understanding Australian election politics better, a good place to start is Prime Minister Forever - Australia 2007.

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This is a nice post on USA Today’s 2008 Presidential election Candidate Match Game. I found the multiple-choice options a little limiting, but I then found out that the options were tied into a very interesting feature of the game. That is, comparing the presidential candidates’ positions to the most popular poll answers.

Here it is:

As you can see, with ‘Poll’ selected (a USA Today poll) (and the default options on the right), the top three candidates are all Republicans. 1. Mitt Romney (Gov., Massachusetts) 2. Mike Huckabee (Gov., Arkansas), and 3. Duncan Hunter (Rep., California). This sort of visual representational scheme also can give you an idea quite quickly of where to look for major weaknesses or strengths in candidates. A nice touch is how the candidates rise up after you answer each question. Kudos to USA Today on the visual design of this Presidential election ‘game’!

In President Forever 2008 + Primaries (our far more involved game), in the 2008 Beta scenario (soon to be the official scenario), interestingly enough Romney and Huckabee are the most centrist of the Republican candidates. Hunter, however, is the farthest to the right of all the candidates. (You can look at this by going to the Platform screen on a turn, and then clicking on an issue icon. The Political Spectrum screen will then come up. Then click the ‘All’ button. Voila.)