SwingVoter Go: What Do We Want from Games?

It’s election day here in the United States!

Jane McGonigal’s Reality Is Broken opens the way I open most conversations with games scholars: with a discussion of the idea of a game. What even is a game, anyway? Where she differs here from most, however, is that instead of discussing code or magic circles, she moves first to vernacular use of the word “game”: “gaming the system,” “playing the game,” “players” – all different ways we talk about strategy and manipulation. It’s only a bit later, when she lays out four defining principles, that she begins to discuss what usually talk about when we talk about games:

  • goal: “the specific outcome players work to achieve.”
  • rules: limitations on player action that can inspire creative responses and approaches.
  • feedback system: some sort of system for demonstrating player progress, like points, progress bars, etc.
  • voluntary participation: I’m going to use McGonigal’s phrasing here, because I could talk about it at length (and will probably come back to it later): “everyone who is playing the game knowingly and willingly accepts the goal, the rules, and the feedback… establishes common ground for multiple people to play together… the freedom to enter or leave a game at will ensures that intentionally stressful and challenging work is experienced as safe and pleasurable activity.”

screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-8-22-06-amI get rowdy about game definitions, but overall, I like McGonigal’s. It’s not too restrictive, as each of these characteristics can be interpreted somewhat loosely. I specifically appreciate that the goal is player-driven, and for someone who finds players often missing in theories of games and game systems, that’s a bonus.

So with all this in mind, imagine me, checking my e-mail throughout the election season, and finding e-mails from both McGonigal and artist Erica Moen, whose work I’ve long admired, about a political-themed game called SwingVoter Go. McGonigal, Moen, and others worked with MoveOn.Org on the anti-Trump challenge, which works a little like (and has some clear visual and ludic references to) Pokémon Go. Swing state residents? Undecided voters? Gotta catch ’em all (and get ’em to vote Clinton).

It’s an interesting concept, and while I haven’t used it much (let’s face it: most of my circle is pretty liberal), I’ve spent some time exploring it, and my initial gut reaction was: that’s not a game. Gamified action, sure, and a creative method for encouraging political action. But a game? Not sure.

And far be it from me to tell Jane McGonigal that her game isn’t a game! But I’m also not sure SwingVoter Go passes her own criteria. There’s a goal, yes, and a very specific one, but the other three criteria are about amorphous here. Rules? There are really none. SVG includes some suggested tools and “lures” but these are only suggestions; you can “play” any way you want. As for a feedback system, one may exist, but it’s essentially self-driven. Players may report that they’ve done something, and that’s “progress,” but it may not be accurate or actually move players toward the ultimate goal of bringing in votes for Clinton.

I don’t go through all of this to say “gotcha, McGonigal! This isn’t a game, you charlatan!” I go through all of this to say: games are bigger than we think they are. We can find game elements in so much we do; we can lay game elements over other activities, too, to make them more interesting and effective. I do all this to say that the boundaries of theory may help us to consider how games work and how games may be measured, but without looking at the practice of games, at expansions of ludic applications, theory may become an obstacle. Meaning: determining

That is, determining common language for talking about games and ludic practices is useful. Hard boundaries that serve as gatekeepers preserving only certain kinds of games-as-games aren’t as useful, because they ignore the vast potential impact of ludic practices as our notions of games expand further and further. Is SwingVoter Go a game according to most theoretical definitions? Probably not. Might it be a useful tool that provides clear strategies for action for people who might otherwise be reluctant to act? Yes, as SVG presents some very compelling ways to use social media in potentially successful campaigns; suggestions to rely on private conversations instead of public debates, and statements on the importance of the one-on-one conversation may help “players” avoid the mess open discussions on Facebook may sometimes become. And that’s really what McGonigal was getting to in Reality Is Broken: that games can be useful, that games can drive us. That games can help us change the world. And that can happen whether or not a call-to-action gamified experience fits its square peg exactly into the round hole of game theory.