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The issues of The Political Machine

Frogboy — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:29:40 -0400

Tonight (4:28am so technically this morning) I'm hanging out on the GalCiv II forums between compiles.

The above is the issue editor for The Political Machine 2008. In it, I must go through every conceivable issue, write a description and then put in the values.

The values on position are between -10 (strongly against) and positive 10 (strongly in favor). The other variable (new in this version) is how important the issue is which is on a scale from 1 to 10.

I also have the a...

Release Schedule Announced

Frogboy — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:22:20 -0400

Our target release date is June 17, 2008 -- give or take a few days based on retail needs.

Below is our tentative schedule:

Beta 1: April 24. All users who pre-order the game will be given access to it.

Beta 2: May 8. All users who pre-order the game will be given access to it.

Release: June 17th-ish.

Stay tuned!

The Political Machine on Twitter

Island Dog — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:18:40 -0400

Twitter has really become one of the most popular "social network" sites around today. It's different than something like Facebook, as this is a way to connect with friends and others, and basically just make short posts (140 characters) about what you are doing, your thoughts, work, etc.

Since the political season is heating up even more, and politics is a hot topic on Twitter, we have created our own account for The Political Machine. It will be regularly updated with links and ...

Some of the first screenshots have arrived

Frogboy — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:05:34 -0400

Here are some screen shots of our current internal build of The Political Machine...

Players can visually design every aspect of their candidate. The candidates in the game aren't "modeled". We just provide the pieces and the rest goes from there. All candidates are bobble-headed in order to make them more like real-life politicians.
You can go on cable TV shows and answer the tough questions which can affect your standing. You're not just a player, you're a voter. The c...

The Political Machine 2008 officially announced

Frogboy — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:38:32 -0400

PLYMOUTH, MI - March 26, 2008 - Do you have what it takes to be the president? Today Stardock Entertainment announced The Political Machine 2008, a new PC game that puts players in control of the 2008 presidential campaign. Play as the campaign manager for a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch.

Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds and are off on the campaign trail to face a host of challenges inc...

The Political Machine 2008 first look

Frogboy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:01:24 -0400

GameSpy has taken a sneak peek at the upcoming version of The Political Machine.

Check it out here:

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-political-machine-2008/

The Political Machine 2008 Website

Frogboy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:00:20 -0400

Welcome to the brand-new Political Machine 2008 website!

Have fun!

The Political Machine prediction closely mirrors actual results

Brad Wardell — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 22:31:58 -0500

In early October using tweaked issues that will be further adjusted in v1.1 coming out later, The Political Machine correctly predicted 47 of the 50 states in this year's election. No polling of candidates. All based on its issue model.

So why didn't it get all 50? The Political Machine's turn out model can't predict the actual turn out. It is based on historical norms. In this election, Republican turn-out was significantly higher than in any previously recorded election resulting in Bush vi...

The Political Machine v1.02 preview

Brad Wardell — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 04:11:21 -0500

We're putting the final tweaks on v1.02 of The Political Machine.

Amongst the tweaks and changes come in the endorsement area. Based on player feedback, we've decided to make conservative special interest groups harder to win the support of if you're a Democrat and vice versa if you're a Republican with the liberal special interest groups.

Most of our energy has been trying to make sure the game works on the widest variety of hardware. The game should run fine on pretty much an...

Ohio, Iowa going to determine outcome of election

Brad Wardell — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 08:43:47 -0400

Polls are interesting things but statistical analysis is my thing. And based on our models in The Political Machine, Kerry is going to squeak out a victory in November barring a sudden change in events.

But the Florida of 2004 may be where you least expect it - Iowa. Ohio and Iowa are going to be the key states this time. But it is Iowa that people should be keeping an eye on even more so than Ohio or Florida. It has a relatively low population which creates all kinds of opportunity fo...

Round-up of political based PC games

Stardock Central — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 23:04:27 -0400

Slate has a great round-up of all the political strategy games for this campaign season. We are pleased to say that our own game, The Political Machine, was ranked as the best of the group. Read the whole story the whole thing and to check out the other games. If you''re a political junkie, you may want to try out these other games as well.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108292/

The Political Machine Post Mortem

Brad Wardell — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 23:01:03 -0400

If you are interested in game development, here is an inside scoop on how The Political Machine was made and what went right and wrong on it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041011/wardell_01.shtml

The Politics of Gaming

Brad Wardell — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 22:43:55 -0400

Check out this article over at Gamespy that goes through the various US presidential based games and what their backgrounds are.

The article is located here: http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/559/559987p1.html

The Political Machine in Wired

Brad Wardell — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:59:53 -0400

Wired News has reviewed The Political Machine.

"The game itself, at least at intermediate levels, is quick-moving and addictive. I was able to hustle through the 41-week election cycle in about three hours. That's all the time you'll need to win at the beginner's level. But as you boost the difficulty (the levels are labeled "tough," "painful," "masochistic" and "crippling" -- enough to dissuade anyone from going pro), each decision requires considerably more thought and research."

h...

The Political Machine 1.02 is available

Brad Wardell — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:14:49 -0400

The official 1.02 patch is now available for download from Ubisoft (for CD orders) or via Stardock Central if you preordered or have TotalGaming.net from Stardock. If you have previously had Safedisc issues and contacted support@stardock.com for those, please followup on those again now. This update will go over 1.01 or the 1.0 retail CD release.

http://www.politicalmachine.com/Download_Update.asp

1.02 Update
-----------

Changes:

Endorsement costs takes into account what poli...

Computer Gaming World: Editor's Choice Award

Brad Wardell — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 14:25:23 -0400

The first major PC publication review of The Political Machine has come out - Computer Gaming World's 4.5 star review and an editor's choice award.

We are very excited and pleased about this. As you can imagine, trying to create a political strategy game that has the right balance of realism and fun and put it together into a $20 package that has very high production values still was really a challenge. But one that we enjoyed immensely and hope you have been enjoying as well.

Make sure yo...

Time Magazine, CNN and The Political Machine

Brad Wardell — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 17:41:10 -0400

Pick up the August 23rd edition of Time Magazine or check out CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/fun.games/08/18/political.machine/index.html) and read some reviews on The Political Machine.

The game should be generally available at most retail outlets that sell PC games.

The Political Machine 1.01 is available!

Brad Wardell — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 16:36:26 -0400

The Political Machine 1.01 is now available for download for those who purchased the retail boxed version. The new version adds a multi-save game manager and now includes much better multiplayer support (a built in lobby is now available).

It also fixes some bugs that users have reported. Most notably, the save game during a campaign game bug is fixed (if you saved a game during the middle of a campaign and came back, it wouldn't count it as a victory).

We also improved the load time...

USA Today: This game serves as fun hands-on glimpse of a uniquely American process.

Brad Wardell — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 21:57:08 -0400

USA Today reviews The Political Machine and gives a play by play example of a Bush vs. Kerry game. Check it out at:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/games/2004-09-09-politicalmachine_x.htm

...About the developer: Stardock

Brad Wardell — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 07:43:42 -0400

The Political Machine is published by Ubi Soft, one of the world's premiere game publishers. But the game was designed and developed by Stardock (www.stardock.com).

Stardock came up with the idea for The Political Machine back in 2000 during the Florida debacle. Realizing that the country was split evenly, a strategy game idea was born. Stardock's last game, Galactic Civilizations, won numerous awards including best turn based strategy game and editor's choice awards from Compute...

Political Blogging

Brad Wardell — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 07:39:08 -0400

Next week will mark the official launch of JoeUser.com, arguably the world's fastest growing blogging community on the Internet.

On JoeUser.com, you can create your own free blog site and post articles on any topic you can imagine. Articles in the politics category gets syndicated out to sites like this one for instance.

Visit http://www.joeuser.com to check out the articles written by thousands of others on-line or to create your own free blog.

Politics Widget

Brad Wardell — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 03:12:16 -0400

If you have DesktopX installed (www.desktopx.net) you can run this electoral college status widget:

http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=34&SkinID=109

DesktopX 2.21 released

Brad Wardell — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 14:12:42 -0400

DesktopX 2.21 has been released. DesktopX is a program that extends Windows to support true objects on the desktop. These objects are used to do everything from have "super icons" to being combined together to create "widgets" as well as building entire desktops.

DesktopX is actually what Stardock used to develop the user interface in The Political Machine. With DesktopX, Stardock was able to create the actual game screens and prototype them at the same time. The finished screens we...

The Political Machine Demo released!

Brad Wardell — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 13:02:41 -0400

For those of you interested in trying out the game before you buy it, you can get a taste of what the game is like by going here:

http://www.download.com/The-Political-Machine/3000-8027-10312016.html?tag=lst-0-1

Have fun!

Reviews at Metacritic

Draginol — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:50:47 -0400

If you want to see the reviews on The Political Machine, visit the site below to see a round-up. Very useful site btw for seeing people's views on movies, games, and more.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/politicalmachine/