Government simulation game
Games based on geopolitics and elections existed long before the emergence of personal computers and their ability to quickly process large amounts of statistical data.
For most users in Europe, the first well known politics game was Dictator [ru], released in 1983 by DK'Tronics and running on Sinclair's ZX Spectrum.
This game features conflict at the height of the Cold War, using political and policy decisions to shape outcomes rather than warfare.
[7][8] In Balance of Power, any armed conflict between the player and the opponent superpower results in a nuclear war, which is considered a loss condition.
Other Cold War era games included Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator created by Virgin Interactive, Spectrum Holobyte's Crisis in the Kremlin and Hidden Agenda.
Conflict simulated a hypothetical situation in 1997 in which the player assumes the role of the Israeli Prime Minister and is obligated to employ various diplomatic and covert directives to defeat its rival nations.
The player could use the simulation to test certain strategies to lead the failing Soviet Union into a new era of prosperity or force its dissolution and integration into the new world order.
This game introduced the concept of budget management, citizen and faction satisfaction as well as multiple economic values and political spectrum.
[14] In 2004, Stardock published Political Machine, in which the player steers a candidate through a 41-week election cycle for United States President, developing policies and tailoring talk show appearances and speech content.
[16] Candidates make promises before each election, and failure to follow through can result in lower support during the player's re-election campaign.
Web-based games such as NationStates allow players to manage the day-to-day decisions of individual governments, and compete against rival nations.
Less formally structured games are also played out in internet forums, where players manage governments and nations according to a set of agreed rules.
A Mind Forever Voyaging, published by Infocom in 1985, was an interactive fiction game in which the player controlled a sentient computer capable of experimenting with potential future scenarios based on varying public policy decisions.
