Election Day

Project site: http://www.election-day.info/

Digital Ventures prepares click-through licenses for some software developed at the University of Washington. Click-through licenses are often used in commercial software, where users indicate their acceptance of the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement by clicking a button. Election Day, a free downloadable game, was an ideal candidate for a click-through license, which minimized administrative overhead.

Description

Election Day is a computer game that simulates how elections work in the United States. Players learn about political parties, public opinion, campaign financing, election law, political marketing, strategic planning, and the media. Potential players include high school and college students, campaign workers and candidates, activists, civic reformers, and interested members of the general public.

Election Day is a role-playing game, so players can assume the roles of a politician or a campaign manager and make decisions regarding the organization of the campaign. The game offers a variety of election simulations from City Council to the President of the United States, enabling players to develop a political career over time. As they play more sessions of the game, they learn more about how elections work.

Technology Benefits

The Election Day game helps the public understand how elections work, which may make them more interested in political campaigns and elections. With this richer understanding of the electoral process, players may become better informed voters or become involved in elections as a campaign volunteer or even a political candidate.

Development Background

Dr. John Gastil of the Department of Communication developed Election Day with the goal of improving the public's understanding of elections while playing a fun simulation game. To broaden the reach of the game, a beta version of the game is distributed as freeware on a UW web site. To use the game, players need only to register their contact information and to accept the click-through license.

Dr. Gastil has received funding for this project from the Department of Speech Communication and the Simpson Center for the Humanities.

Future Goals

Election Day currently uses national public opinion data and some local data. Dr. Gastil would like to improve the local data by working with teachers and scholars across the country to gain access to more refined, localized opinion data. Other goals include developing parallel user interfaces, complementing the existing one with a more basic interface for beginners and high school students. The game has been play-tested with political science undergraduates, and is used in the UW's Gear Up program, which reaches out to disadvantaged middle- and high-school students who might not otherwise pursue higher education.

Digital Ventures' Role

Digital Ventures helped Dr. Gastil manage the rights of the people who have contributed to the development of the game. Collecting participation agreements for all project participants was an important part of the rights management. Digital Ventures also helped clear the rights for the many sounds and images used in Election Day.

Other areas where Digital Ventures supported Election Day included:

• marketing and increasing exposure of the game
• identifying possible distribution channels
• identifying people who might get first access to the game
• contacting people who could help distribute the game

Contact

Dr. John Gastil, Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
University of Washington
Phone: 206.543.4655
Fax: 206.685.1841
E-mail: jgastil@u.washington.edu