For better votes, know your gamers

With India being ranked as third on Google Play Store for the total number of games downloaded in 2013, gaming companies are now cashing in on games around politics to get a clearer picture of the winners in the General Elections 2014.

The first example to start with can be Modi Run, a two-dimensional version of the famous Temple Run, where Modi played the key role and the levels of the game were the states of the country. The game gave a clearer picture of what the gamer wanted the character or candidate to perform. The game had recorded good number of downloads and turned into a cult among other politicos. In another instance, Kursi Cricket, developed by Games2Win is an online and mobile game developed for Elections 2014 is all about encouraging users to vote (play) for their preferred politician.

“Gaming is the new youth speak and can be a very interesting method of communicating important social points. The idea behind this game was to use Games2Win’s gaming engine to reveal the choice of the nation at any moment. The leaderboard scores immediately identify the winning politician and how competitive the game really is,” said Mahip Vyas, head (alliances and distribution), Games2Win in a recent interview with a local daily.

Thus far, Kursi Cricket has witnessed 450,000 downloads on iOS and Android platforms, and over 150,000 page views online. As on April 17, 2014, the leaderboard scores -- Narendra Modi: 13,52,82,047, Rahul Gandhi: 7,16,56,956, and Arvind Kejriwal: 7,16,56,511. Kursi Cricket is targetted at the 15-34 age group.

Hyderabad, being a hub of animation and gaming, was the place where this phenomenal step was first experimented. 7Seas Technologies Limited, a city based independent game development company developed India’s first political fighting games in 2009 after the interest it generated in similar virtual games that pitted an online Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama against his Republican rival John McCain ahead of the US elections in November 2008.

This time, the three free online games – Election War, Vote for your Leader and Party Race – are caricatured and animated. They are neither to promote any political party nor to make garner money but to create awareness about the importance of elections, says L Maruti Sanker, managing director of 7Seas.

“The gameplans of these games are all about players selecting their favourite leader and making them win. The idea is to educate and make the gamers cast their vote in the real ballot,” he said.

The success of the game (political) depends upon the consumers’ acceptance to play. During the election phase, the game can be leveraged. But, consumers will not wholly focus on these. The shelf life of political games is limited to the election phase. The model can recover costs only when if a political party is commissioning the development of the game.