Politics in Games -- An Overview and Classification

TL;DR

Contextualizes the rise of political content in video games as a lens on opinion formation and political socialization. The authors conduct a systematic review of politically themed games, derive a first taxonomy, and analyze a Steam-focused sample alongside a broader dataset to map genres, leadership perspectives, and governance representations. The study identifies a balance between democratic and autocratic themes and demonstrates the prevalence of simulation and strategy genres in political games, with a wide price range indicating broad accessibility. The findings establish a foundation for future, cross-disciplinary research at the intersection of game studies and political science and point to methodological needs such as finer-grained political categorization.

Abstract

The representation of politics in media influences societal perceptions and attitudes. Video games, as a pervasive form of media, contribute significantly to this phenomenon. In this work, we explore political themes within video games by analyzing politically-themed games on game distribution platforms including Steam. We conducted a statistical examination of games with political context to identify patterns and use this as a basis to introduce a first taxonomy to categorize and better understand the interplay between politics and video games. This taxonomy offers a first framework for analyzing political content in games and also sets a foundation for future research in this field.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: Number of games containing each keyword (out of n=27,000).
• Figure 2: Distribution of the keyword "democracy" across game categories.