Online games are becoming an increasingly common tool for democratic political action and a target of authoritarian repression.
In the final week of the Canadian federal election campaign for 2021, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the progressive New Democratic Party of Canada, made a "big" statement. He tweeted : "We are launching our own island on Animal Crossing! If you visit - you can learn more about our campaign and how to get involved."
This was an invitation to players of Nintendo Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a social simulation game for Nintendo Switch in which players explore virtual islands and create individualised communities populated by anthropomorphic animals. Visitors to Singh's Island, aptly named "Canada," have encountered NDP-branded content, including an orange poutine food truck, recreated indigenous artwork and campaign talking points posted on the city's message board.
Singh's campaign is not the first to employ these mobilisation tactics. The Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign deployed signs that players could place around their islands to show their support for the democratic ticket, and created an island " Biden headquarters " with information about the campaign and how to vote in real life.
In an interview with Deputy, Amneet Singh, Deputy Director of NDP Outreach (digital), explained why the party had invested time and resources to create this virtual space: "Animal Crossing is this place where a lot of people have congregated. We wanted to meet them where they were, so we set up an island to show them what we were going to do, what Jagmeet was about and how they could get involved.
According to Animal Crossing's development team, the majority of people playing the game are between 20 and 30 years old, with about half identifying as male and half as female.
This is not Jagmeet Singh's first attempt to tap into the information ecosystem where politics and video games intersect. In November 2020, he teamed up with US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on streaming platform Twitch to play a galactic game of social deduction among us. The two worked together to identify and eject imposters into the cosmic vacuum. Their collaboration is an attempt by politicians to bridge an uncharted political frontier to reach young voters. Twitch advertises its user base as being between the ages of 16 and 34.
It may seem to some observers that Singh and Ocasio-Cortez are boldly going where no one has gone before. But before politicians in North America began incorporating video games and popular internet gaming platforms into their digital strategies to spread political messages and motivate voters, a different mission was being played out across the Pacific.
In April 2020, months before Biden's headquarters opened, protesters in Hong Kong were forced inside because of COVID-19. Seeking an exciting way to bring their message to the attention of others, democracy activists, including Joshua Wong, began turning Animal Crossing's customisable virtual islands into a political environment. Wong tweeted about his island, which is a virtual protest platform, calling it a "new kind of protest tool" that could come in handy when physical demonstrations cannot be held. Players approaching Wong's home are greeted by a sign that reads "Free Hong Kong - Revolution Now" and a pair of paintings depicting Chinese President Xi Jinping and Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam.
Soon after, Animal Crossing's foreign editions disappeared from Chinese e-commerce sites Taobao and Pinduoduo. The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), China's video game regulator, has yet to license the game, meaning it was technically an illegal import. The NPPA has powers, which include verifying the game's content against Chinese cultural values and requiring foreign companies, such as Casino mit Startgeld ohne Einzahlung, to partner with a Chinese firm such as Tencent to publish games in the Chinese market.
At the end of August 2021, Beijing introduced new restrictions targeting video games, ostensibly aimed at curbing video game addiction among China's youth. The NPPA mandates build on previous actions to limit time spent playing games to three hours per week and require players to provide their real names to log in. However, these measures are more than just efforts to combat addictive behaviour. They are part of the government's wider ideological concerns about Western culture, the suppression of Chinese technology companies, and the desire to extend surveillance capabilities to all segments of society.
The Chinese government's willingness to exert draconian control over these technology outlets also gives the state the ability to put pressure on companies outside China. If foreign companies such as Activision Blizzard or Nintendo want access to the lucrative Chinese market, they must comply with government content checks and identification requirements. This puts companies in the position of having to decide whether to censor content deemed offensive by China's Communist Party, or risk losing market access because they no longer comply with regulations.
Gaming companies have been facing this for years. In 2019, when Activision Blizzard took punitive action against a professional Hearthstone player who showed his support for protests in Hong Kong during a post-match interview, the company found itself embroiled in a geopolitical dispute . Democratic activists on both sides of the Pacific have organised a boycott of the company, which has been perceived as worshiping China and censoring political speech. The movement, known as #BoycottBlizzard, consisted of players removing Activision Blizzard games, protesting outside the company's annual meeting and discussing the merits of the video game industry business model. The boycott received support from several bipartisan members of Congress, including Ocasio-Cortez and Senators Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio.
Nintendo has also acknowledged that the political activity taking place on its platform could trigger an unwanted investigation. Following the US presidential campaign in 2020, Nintendo issued guidelines for businesses and other organisations using Animal Crossing as a promotional tool. One guideline reads, "Please also refrain from involving politics in the game." However, it is unclear when the company will enforce the rules, given that Singh's Canadian federal election campaign ran Animal Crossing a few months after the rules were released. Perhaps Nintendo has never seen the content. Perhaps the company is only taking action against political activity that it believes is detrimental to its profits.
While the geopolitical gaming landscape is still changing, three trends seem clear. First, politicians in democratic societies view video games as a space to reach young voters, running political campaigns to incorporate video games into their digital outreach operations. Second, video games as digital platforms pose a potential threat to the political stability of authoritarian regimes, prompting digital dictators to restrict access to video games and censor content. Third, for gaming companies wishing to operate in both the US and Chinese markets, executives must consider the political and subsequent economic implications of their content and operations.
Wong is currently in prison for violating China's 2020 National Security Law, which criminalises secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces. Although he was convicted of organising a physical protest in front of the Hong Kong police and participating in a picket on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square riot, it is easy to imagine Chinese authorities monitoring video game sites for political dissidents and arresting the real people behind them. It's also easy to imagine future political campaigns in democracies around the world targeting people in the virtual realms where they congregate. Welcome to the age of geopolitical gaming, where flames of rebellion and political advertising can be found on the Nintendo Switch.
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