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The Jesse Ventura Campaign Video Game

From the Associated Press, Wed, Apr. 24, 2002:
Ventura's next pitch to voters may come via video games
ASHLEY H. GRANT
Associated Press Writer

ST. PAUL - If you think Gov. Jesse Ventura is animated now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Ventura's campaign committee, credited in 1998 with being among the first to use the Internet as an effective campaign tool, is again exploring how to break new ground - this time by distributing interactive campaign-themed video games.

Forget the standard glossy leaflets most candidates send. The games, on CDs or DVDs or posted on Ventura's Web site, would feature the Navy SEAL-turned-wrestler-turned-actor-turned governor, presumably touting his political accomplishments and putting the heat on his opponents.

"There's no shortage of material for a number of games," said Phil Madsen, treasurer of the Jesse Ventura Volunteer Committee.

The Ventura game (or collection of games) would be entertaining, 100 percent political and distributed free to voters as campaign literature, he said. While the games are just in the talking stage, Madsen describes what might emerge as "an ongoing political cartoon" that could engage the voter for hours.

"On the level of Letterman-like awards for creativity, this would be a good candidate," said Larry Jacobs, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota.

First, though, there's a potential legal hurdle: Would the games be considered campaign literature or gifts? Minnesota law prohibits a campaign from giving most gifts to voters.

Madsen has asked the state's Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board for an opinion, but board members said this week that the gift clause doesn't appear to fall under their jurisdiction. It's unclear, exactly, what group might have jurisdiction.

In the meantime, the campaign committee is keeping in touch with the game maker that hatched the idea. Because it's still in its talking stages, the governor hasn't yet been approached with the possibility.

Ventura declined an interview on the topic. He has said he won't decide whether he'll run until the July candidate filing period, but Madsen says he wants to be ready just in case.

"I'd much rather be prepared for a campaign that doesn't happen than to be unprepared for one that does," he says.

If not the first, it's among the first times a candidate would use a video game as campaign literature.

But Joseph Turow, professor of communications at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, said it's a logical next step in the integration of politics and entertainment.

Ventura, like other candidates before him, is trying to break outside the box for maximum exposure. All candidates create a persona - that's part of what gets them elected, Turow said.

"In a crowded media environment, breaking through is what you need to do," he said. "If you can break through, particularly if they're younger voters or unaffiliated voters, it's terrific. I think the idea is to be applauded."

Madsen, who also serves as the committee's Webmaster, has maintained that Ventura's 1998 victory didn't happen because of the Internet, but it wouldn't have happened without it.

He set up the Web site, a mix of position papers and biographical data, to produce money, volunteers and votes. The campaign raised a good chunk of its $600,000 in donations and loans through the Web site, which Madsen said cost $600 to set up.

Since Ventura was elected, the campaign Web site has sold Ventura action figures and thousands of bobblehead dolls. If the video games present ethical problems, one solution might be to sell them from the Web site.

"Nobody anticipated what a hit the Jesse Ventura bobbleheads would be," Madsen said. "A Ventura game could be a huge success or just a worthy experiment."

The Torrid Tale of the Mystery Developer

A few short months after this article, a story broke about Ventura’s kid trashing the Governor’s mansion with a house party, and Ventura decided not to run for re-election. Subsequently, 8 months of work down the tubes for your hero JBDC.

Former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura was the Governor of our State and seemed to attract a lot of media attention in his various escapades. Like him or not (and a majority didn’t), his election made politics in Minnesota more exciting.

It all started in late 2001. We had just made the move re-branding BieberSoft into Fizzual Design and I wanted to start working on something revolutionary. Physicam was still a while off, so I tried getting involved with the political scene. Political groups were staring to gear up for the 2002 Gubernatorial elections. I contacted the Ventura campaign at their website to see if they were interested in using us to build a political themed game staring Ventura. The Ventura campaign was famous for some novel ideas. They had used Ventura’s name and image in all sorts of original fundraising activities such as selling T-shirts, action figures, and bobble-heads. If Ventura ran for re-election, there was a desire and even a pressure to continue that tradition, and to top what they did in 98. Phil Madsen, treasurer of the pending campaign, bought into my idea; and I devoted my time to developing “Jesse Ventura: The Game of Politics”.

In my mind, a video game was the perfect idea for marketable figure like Ventura. Besides being a novel and untapped idea, video games blow other forms of media away in at least 2 regards:

1. Value added propaganda If the democratic party produced a VHS tape, or aired an infomercial on television they said was going to lionize their views and policies, how many people would pick it up and watch it? (Besides Barbra Streisand) Very few would have any interest. Yet millions of people do watch The West Wing every week. Why? Because it is mixed with something they value: in this case stories they find captivating. Same holds true for a video game.

2. Easy sales and distribution Physically, video games are easy to distribute. CDs can be mass produced for pennies each, and top quality packaging can be made for less than a dollar. But when put on the internet, you instantly give access to anyone who wants to play the game from anywhere in the world, and it doesn’t cost a thing (unless you don’t have your own connection and are paying for bandwidth) to distribute it. Video games also provide a variety of sales models, such as shareware and adware that let people try the product (and get the message you want to distribute), and then can also contribute to the campaign by paying for extra features, or can generate revenue just by playing it with embedded ads.

Like most of his campaign staff, I worked as a volunteer. I knew going in that I was taking a gamble- he could still decide not to run for re-election and all my work would be for not. But I took the gamble, and looking back (despite the outcome) I can still say it was the right move. The only thing I would have changed it the fact that we had to produce the game in secret. Here’s why:

You see, in April of 2002 the Ventura campaign had to find out if and how they could legally distribute a video game. While you could sell items, campaign laws in the US and in Minnesota prohibit candidates from giving things of value away for free. That said, video games raised all sorts of new questions. If we gave the game away as a limited version, and sold the full version, is the limited version an illegal giveaway? If we gave the game away as adware, would it still fall under those rules? Even if people downloaded it but had to pay before they could play, would the file itself be an “item of value”? Can digital files be “items of value” since they have no physical presence?

The Ventura campaign checked with the Minnesota Supreme Court as to how they could legally distribute a video game. Of course, at that point it became public record and the story broke. The AP picked it up (as shown above) and all of the sudden it was in all the local papers, on the news both locally and nationally, and even appeared on tons of news, political, video game, and pro-wrestling web sites (which is where I first found out the story broke).

I prepared as Ventura’s campaign booked the game’s worldwide debut on NBC’s Meet the Press, and for subsequent showings and interviews on various news outlets. Ventura would be the main man, of course; but Phil and I would also be able to contribute, as the people who brought this idea to life. Needless to say, I was excited that my gamble had paid off. No video game, not Super Mario 3, not Mortal Kombat, not Matrix Reloaded, not even Aquaman had enough hype to garner this mainstream interest and potential publicity; and I was the little developer who would have made it all happen. I could not wait until I was unveiled as the “secret volunteer developer” of what was already booked to be the most televised video game in the history of the world.

Then in July the news came that Ventura was not going to seek reelection. Ventura retired from politics into (relative) obscurity, and the big debut never happened. Now of course the game couldn’t generate hype if it were marrying J-Lo. I guess I take some solace in that because of my idea, shareware is now a legal method of distributing campaign propaganda in the US.

Looking back, I think God was looking out for me on this one. The game really sucked, and a debut on national television would have given me the kind of attention I didn’t need.