Monday, May 12, 2008
Media Mogul as a Half Life 2 Mod
The modding tools found in many first-person shooters are well suited for rapidly prototyping my current ideas. Specifically, the the Half Life 2 Source engine's system of planning and triggering squad-based assaults is very adaptable to the key feature of the game: indirectly manipulating different demographics of NPCs as they go about their daily business on the timed levels and scenarios to create certain political outcomes. The game will not always be a Half Life mod, but it should provide a useful framework for playtests, demos, and concept video.
Friday, May 2, 2008
My Original Media Mogul Proposal (June 2007)
Media Mogul Simulator(MMS) is a single player game of managing a media company with holdings in several type of media. The game traces the influence of media tycoons and corporations such as Rupert Murdoch, Mike Bloomberg, Viacom, and General Electric that mediate the democratic process for the public in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government. The methods media companies and politicians use to manage their roles in a capitalist democracy is the subject matter of the game.
The game starts with the beginning of legislative elections and focuses on advertising, news coverage, and corporate partisanship. The second level is composed of judicial proceedings determined by the outcome of the legislative branch. The presidential election level that follows is different in that Media Mogul Player become more directly involved in the political process. Choices made up to this level determine if the player will be a presidential candidate of one party or the other, an exiled dissident covering the election in hiding, a vice president, or a part of the military industrial complex. The game ends with a regime change and an opportunity to try again.
The game is designed to promote media literacy among gamers. A dialogue about the centralized control of media by corporations is important for voters who receive the majority of their political information from corporate-controlled sources. The game should be taught and played as part of larger program that emphasizes DIY media production and literacy.
In order to guide the narrative and outcomes, MMS uses four scores. Scores represent current stock price, the amount of favor you have gained from both political parties, and a list of your corporate holdings(newspapers, television channels, Internet firms, etc.) The stock price represents your negotiating power and value to politicians. The amount of favor you have gained from each party will determine your relationship with ruling party, opposition party, and the people who vote for them. Your holdings also determine what kind of relationships the politicians pursue with the company.
Level 1: Creating Your Company
The game starts with a limited budget to form your media conglomerate. Your choice of specific newspapers, television channels, websites, video game companies, movie companies, and magazines will determine your initial scores. All the media holdings the player can choose influences the first level starting score. For example, owning a video game company that specializes in war games makes you more valuable to a right wing candidate, while a liberal news website would increase your favor with the left wing party.
Level 2: Legislative Branch
The legislative level deals with solicitation of campaign money and favorable coverage. You are given the choice of supporting one, both, neither of the parties and the degree you will support them. The scores are updated after the election. A merger and acquisitions round determines if you can buy or sell media divisions, depending on the your stock price and current holdings. This level deals with the corporate ownership of media, the profit motive, and the power they hold in an election. Your scores are updated after mergers and acquisitions.
Level 3: Judicial Branch
This level will examine the legal ramifications of the mergers and acquisitions round of level 1. If your stock price and favorability are high with the ruling party, you can try to get laws changed in your favor: tax breaks, expanded markets, or sue a competitor. If stock prices and favorability are low, anti-trust hearing, corruption charges, and exile are potential outcomes.
Level 4: Executive Branch
A high stock price and favorability with a party would allow you to run as a candidate with that party. Other outcomes of the judicial hearings could have you covering the election from another country, using fake news to get one candidate elected, exposing scandals, or demonizing a candidate.
As part of a comprehensive media literacy program, Media Mogul informs voters on the danger to the democratic process posed by unsupervised corporate media control. It should be part of a program that emphasizes individual or small scale media creation (blogging, citizen journalism, documentary making) as a balance to those forces.
Narrative and Gameplay
The game starts with the beginning of legislative elections and focuses on advertising, news coverage, and corporate partisanship. The second level is composed of judicial proceedings determined by the outcome of the legislative branch. The presidential election level that follows is different in that Media Mogul Player become more directly involved in the political process. Choices made up to this level determine if the player will be a presidential candidate of one party or the other, an exiled dissident covering the election in hiding, a vice president, or a part of the military industrial complex. The game ends with a regime change and an opportunity to try again.
The game is designed to promote media literacy among gamers. A dialogue about the centralized control of media by corporations is important for voters who receive the majority of their political information from corporate-controlled sources. The game should be taught and played as part of larger program that emphasizes DIY media production and literacy.
In order to guide the narrative and outcomes, MMS uses four scores. Scores represent current stock price, the amount of favor you have gained from both political parties, and a list of your corporate holdings(newspapers, television channels, Internet firms, etc.) The stock price represents your negotiating power and value to politicians. The amount of favor you have gained from each party will determine your relationship with ruling party, opposition party, and the people who vote for them. Your holdings also determine what kind of relationships the politicians pursue with the company.
Level 1: Creating Your Company
The game starts with a limited budget to form your media conglomerate. Your choice of specific newspapers, television channels, websites, video game companies, movie companies, and magazines will determine your initial scores. All the media holdings the player can choose influences the first level starting score. For example, owning a video game company that specializes in war games makes you more valuable to a right wing candidate, while a liberal news website would increase your favor with the left wing party.
Level 2: Legislative Branch
The legislative level deals with solicitation of campaign money and favorable coverage. You are given the choice of supporting one, both, neither of the parties and the degree you will support them. The scores are updated after the election. A merger and acquisitions round determines if you can buy or sell media divisions, depending on the your stock price and current holdings. This level deals with the corporate ownership of media, the profit motive, and the power they hold in an election. Your scores are updated after mergers and acquisitions.
Level 3: Judicial Branch
This level will examine the legal ramifications of the mergers and acquisitions round of level 1. If your stock price and favorability are high with the ruling party, you can try to get laws changed in your favor: tax breaks, expanded markets, or sue a competitor. If stock prices and favorability are low, anti-trust hearing, corruption charges, and exile are potential outcomes.
Level 4: Executive Branch
A high stock price and favorability with a party would allow you to run as a candidate with that party. Other outcomes of the judicial hearings could have you covering the election from another country, using fake news to get one candidate elected, exposing scandals, or demonizing a candidate.
Media Literacy
As part of a comprehensive media literacy program, Media Mogul informs voters on the danger to the democratic process posed by unsupervised corporate media control. It should be part of a program that emphasizes individual or small scale media creation (blogging, citizen journalism, documentary making) as a balance to those forces.
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