Political Arena News

Happy 2024, everyone! We just released our second beta update and are heartened by our testers’ excited and constructive feedback. 

Our current development focus continues to be on implementing legislative mechanics and interfaces. Specifically, we’re fine-tuning the budget process, which will inform the rest of our legislative architecture – the federal budget process is the one bit of legislating that Congress must undertake in any given year (in theory). The federal budget may not spring to mind when you think of politics’ more exciting bits, but at the ground level -- where Political Arena lives -- it’s rife with drama. It incorporates many of Political Arena’s most exciting and immersive features and mechanics: issues and policy, special interests, the media, negotiations, personalities and their impact on AI behavior, and more.



On that note, we’re altering our feature roadmap. We had originally planned for our first Early Access release to be “a mile long and an inch deep” by featuring a little bit of everything  – that is, lightly simulated campaigning and legislating. Instead, we’ve decided to have early versions focus solely on legislating. Our reasoning is twofold: 

1. The legislative process hasn’t been thoroughly developed in video games, and we think it’s important to let that part “cook” for longer so we can get more player feedback. 

2. Ultimately, politics boils down to legislating and policy. Special interests typically don’t choose their agenda based on politicians, they choose their politicians based on agendas. This is also how Political Arena’s underlying architecture is structured, so by building out legislative mechanics first, we’ll be able to more seamlessly and quickly produce and scale everything else.

More soon!

First, an apology. We’ve been lousy about our updates. We’re a small team and our chief goal is to get you Political Arena ASAP so you start enjoying this game. The long hours are paying off: We're excited to announce that we’re beginning beta testing!



Earlier today we shared the first preview of Political Arena with our several hundred beta testers. It's a brief preview, as our goal is to get some initial feedback on the game’s scope, tone and direction and to better organize our feature roadmap. The feedback thus far has been amazing. Not only are our testers jazzed by what they're seeing -- and clearly they share our vision of what the game can be --but they're offering really constructive feedback and Political Arena will be much better for it.

We took a real body blow last year when two developers left our production partner for new opportunities. However we reorganized and are making better time than ever. We’re even growing: We recently welcomed Danny Aguilar, a talented UI/UX artist and designer, to the Political Arena team. Danny is tasked with making Political Arena real and fun. You could say he’s, well … you could say he’s putting the, um … sauce back in sausage making?

…sorry.



As always, we want to encourage you to join our Discord. These updates require more forethought and planning, and therefore cannot be as frequent while we are in go-go-go development mode. But Discord is casual enough to allow me to pop in and chat about Political Arena’s development and what my dog is up to. With a robust community of over 500 members, our Discord server is a great place to learn more about the game and chat politics.

Until next time!

-Eliot

We've had some great conversations on Discord with the Political Arena community the past few months, providing production updates, answering Qs about the game, talking politics and what games we're playing.

[h3]We're on Discord, and you should be, too! Click here to join the Political Arena conversation. [/h3]

Team Political Arena is a small group, and though production continues apace on our beloved "Resigning-to-spend-more-time-with-my-family-but-actually-I'm-taking-a-lobbying-job" simulator, we don't always have the time to update all our social channels. We're in the process of building out our team to ensure we have more bandwidth to share updates with you, but in the meantime we hope you'll pop into our Discord, where our ability to easily chat with the community allows us to keep in touch when we have free moments between figuring out whether to include bolo ties in character creation and how much algorithmic weight to give to agribusiness lobbyists.

Steam updates, by comparison, are a bit more cumbersome and time consuming. To give you a sense of things, here's a walkthrough of Steam's backend UI.

See you on Discord!

[h2]We made the paper of record![/h2]

The New York Times just published a look at Political Arena.

[T]hink SimCity meets The Oregon Trail — with a little Grand Theft Auto thrown in...

...Nelson wants to educate the masses about the ins and outs of how their government really works. And entertain them, too...

...a scrappy team of game designers, marketers and grizzled industry veterans. They puzzled through how the gameplay should work, poring over storyboards and seeking input from hard-core political junkies and strategy-game fans.

Check out the whole article at NYTimes.com.

And don't forget to wishlist Political Arena if you haven't already!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670920/Political_Arena/

With Political Arena's development underway, we're pleased to present to you our first development diary. We'll be releasing these regularly to update you on our production and to highlight game features.

[h2]If you haven't already, please wishlist us on Steam.
[/h2]

Politics is the accumulation and exercise of power, and politicians amass power in a multitude of ways: Sometimes it’s luring canvassers to your campaign with free Dominos; sometimes it’s begging a regional car dealership magnate for money in their living room; and other times it’s giving the speaker’s nephew an internship in your office because the kid lives in your district.

Political Arena is a game about American power, so it’s only appropriate that for our inaugural dev diary, we discuss…

*screams in Nina Simone*



Specifically, we’re going to provide a brief overview of how power is represented in Political Arena. It all boils down to three currencies: Money, Political Capital and Fame. How much a player focuses on each currency will depend on their own goals and circumstances. All three currencies play off one another, and no playthrough will have the player completely ignoring any single one.

[h2]MONEY[/h2]


Money is the root of all evil, so naturally it plays a big role in politics. In Political Arena, politicians use money to fund campaigns -- both their own and those of colleagues with whom they wish to curry favor -- and by citizens and outside actors hoping to influence the government. Politicians accrue campaign cash through voters, organizations, megadonors and – occasionally – from legally dubious sources. Yes, there will be super PACs, but more on those at another point.

[h2]POLITICAL CAPITAL[/h2]


Political Capital is the currency of Washington: it’s what politicians spend to influence other political actors, whether it’s goading leadership into putting a bill up for a vote, getting a prominent advocacy group to rally around specific legislation or to get a pesky investigation into your foreign campaign contributions dropped. Obtaining higher office, holding key leadership or committee posts, being in the graces of influential special interests and having one’s legislation passed are among the ways a player accumulates Political Capital.

[h2]FAME[/h2]


Fame is central to a politician’s ambitions. Without increased name recognition, a senator can’t be elected president, a congressperson can’t be elected a senator, or, heaven forbid, the 7th-most successful telecom executive in Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District will remain the seventh-most successful telecom executive in Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District … forever. Politicians spend Fame on media appearances, campaign rallies and constituent events. Having more fame translates to polling boosts, media invitations and a greater interest among voters to donate to campaigns and show up to campaign rallies.

[h2]One Last Thing... [/h2]

In Political Arena, as in politics, sometimes you have to wield your influence to gain more power. You’ll often spend these currencies to help increase the rate you accrue them (like spending a set amount of fame on a TV appearance only to watch your fame tick up faster afterwards). Moreover, a great many in-game features and developments can impact the rate you gain power currencies: the triumphs and failures of other politicians in your party, your traits (more on those later) and various events and event chains, to name a few.

That’s it for now. We’ll be back soon with another Political Arena dev diary. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Ronald Reagan being shown the latest Political Arena developments: