Democracy in Video Game: The Transcendence of Political System to Virtual Reality

“Democracy is hailed as the most ‘closer to perfect’ political system that human civilization ever created”

Human civilization, the most impressive accomplishment of humanity, was founded and flourished through the direct contribution of effective political systems. The inception of the political system can be traced back to our forgotten past, right at the time of the first manifestation of societal infrastructure. Throughout the course of time, the political system evolved greatly and the final product of the thousands years’ of evolution is the modern democracy. Though modern democracy is not a foolproof political system, it is considered one of the most significant achievements in human history, based on the assumptions of perfect democratic practices.

The word democracy came from two Greek words: “demos” and “kratos”. When the first one means ‘the people’, the latter one means ‘power of authority’. So, it’s evident that democracy is a political system that provides people with the power of authority. The ultimate question is- how this mechanism works. Well, that’s quite a complex maneuver and significantly differs in different part of the world. Basically, democracy has two different systems of empowering citizens: directly and indirectly. In a direct democracy, all of the citizens take active/direct part in democratic decision making – i.e. the communal decision-making procedures. On the other hand, in an indirect democracy, people choose their representatives who take decisions on behalf of them. The direct type of democracy is only applicable to a small group of people and virtually absent in modern democratic practices. Rather, the indirect system is widely used throughout the world, with broad variations in different regions.

The notion of democracy is believed to be first declared in ancient Athens around 500 B.C. when the city-state implemented a primal democratic mechanism in which all of its citizens were entitled to exercise their democratic rights in any type of decision making. This mechanism was far from perfect as Athens only considered the Athenian born parents’ (both father and mother) decedents as citizens (thus, slaves and foreigners were excluded). Also, women didn’t have any participation in such decision making which eventually confined the system to only a handful of people. Rome, in its early days, also practiced democracy through Roman republic which had the similar drawbacks like the Greek (Athenian) democracy. However, both Greece (as Athens destroyed) and Rome (as it turned to the Roman Empire) failed to sustain their democracy for the long run due to constant warfare and internal political conflicts. After those shocks, the initial boost of democracy halted for a long time. The next big thing for democratic advancement was the Magna Carta (the great charter), the formal document signed by King John I in 1215 A.D, declaring some rights for the people while forgoing some power from the king’s hand. After Magna Carta, there was again a long gap before the next step of democratic development – the American Revolution. The United States of America, as a sovereign country (gaining independence from Britain in 1781), established its famous constitution in 1788 which is considered as the building block of the world’s first truly democratic nation. Since then, Democracy got extensive momentum and spread throughout the world rapidly. The system even prevailed through the cold war and eventually showed the flaws of socialism by winning over the Soviet bloc.

As modern democracy follows the ‘indirect’ practice, it’s not the perfect system either. There are lots of loopholes in this system that can lead to the ultimate chaos instead of the long craved good governance, justice and fair practices. However, despite these flaws, democracy is hailed as the most ‘closer to perfect’ political system that human civilization ever created. So, the system is extensively hailed, criticized and illustrated in mass media – the modern means of collective expression. Most interestingly, democracy is effectively illustrated in video gaming platform too!

The groundbreaking game that took democracy to the doorsteps of dedicated gamers is also named as ‘Democracy’ which was first released in 2005. With immense success and popularity of that game, the developer (Positech Games) published two sequels of the game in 2007 and 2013. Right now, the 2013 version is available in the market which has extensively upgraded features compared to the first two games of the franchise.

The game includes a unique gameplay that allows the player to act like a president or prime minister who takes decisions regarding state policies in these sectors: tax, economy, welfare, foreign policy, transport, law and order, and public services. While taking decisions, he has to be much careful about the effect of that decision on focus groups that hold the voting rights. The player also faces numerous events, dilemmas and situations which test his political wisdom and ultimately leads him to win/defeat. Based on a complex neural network, this game provides the player with a complete virtual world which resembles the real world in several contexts and also contains the complexities of the real world to a higher extent. So, the game is considered to have a very high value in terms of political education and has already used in a number of educational institutions for teaching purposes.

Nothing is perfect in this world – so is the democracy and this particular game depicting democracy. Of course, there are other political systems existing in the contemporary world: monarchy, oligarchy and tyranny etc., each of which has its own drawbacks which are worse in comparison with democracy. As human being is capable of improving virtually anything through constant iteration, democracy should not be an exception. So, let’s hope for a better, closer to perfect democracy that not only leads the people of the world to the era of greatness but also ensures a world of peace and plenty.

Disclaimer: This article was written for Project EduGaming. It’s republished here as the project website is not accessible these days.