September/October 2007 Issue

All Your Political Base Are Belong to Us

Video games with a political agenda

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“Advergames” are an increasingly popular method of bringing commercial messages to the nation’s 117 million or so video gamers. Interest groups are also getting into the action, hooking up with design shops such as Persuasive Games, which, for a mere $40,000, will design a custom game to get out your political message.

 

Game / Creator

How to Play

Feels Like…

Nice Touch

Airport Security
Persuasive Games

Oversee a busy airport security checkpoint, relieving passengers of contraband such as water bottles, toasters, and pants

If the ACLU reissued the ’80s arcade game Tapper

Tapper

Courtesy announcement: “Please be advised: Security personnel are authorized to use groping.”

Take Back Illinois
Illinois Republicans

Take Back Illinois

Lower medical costs, boost civic engagement, and improve schools and the economy

SimCity meets Milton Friedman

Rigged so that you can only win if you freeze taxes or cap malpractice damages

Darfur is Dying
University of Southern California students, winners of the Darfur Digital Activist Contest

Play a refugee trying to find water while hiding from Jeeps filled with rampaging Janjaweed militiamen

Sid Meier’s End of Civilization

Sid Meyer's End of Civilization

So you’re sitting on your butt playing a video game about genocide

Border Patrol
The Insurgent, a white supremacist website

Border Patrol

Blow away Mexican drug smugglers and “breeders” with children in tow as they cross into the United States

Duck Hunt for racists

Score 88 points and win. The number is a neo-Nazi code for “Heil Hitler” (H is the 8th letter of the alphabet).

Bushgame
Activist programmer Jason Oda

Guide Hulk Hogan and Mr. T as they battle corporate pigs and mutant Bush Cabinet members in a surreal fight to save the world

Old-school Nintendo, as imagined by the South Park guys

South Park

Bridging a gaping chasm with a super-nerdy bar chart of the federal deficit. Don’t fall into that $500 billion hole!

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

Your support keeps us going. If you’re able, donate today.

Thanks for reading.

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