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Codebreaker

MTV wants you to play fantasy election

Marketplace Staff Apr 24, 2012

MTV hopes to get the youth involved in this year’s campaign with plans for Fantasy Election ‘12, a game being unveiled today. The obvious question here is: do “the youth” still watch MTV?

The game plays out as a political version of fantasy sports, where a team of politicians, made up of a president and members of both houses of Congress, is assembled then shuffled based on a points system. From CNN: “To encourage players to select honest, inspiring politicians, the most valuable candidates will have measurable integrity as well as strong poll numbers. Each candidate’s ‘value’ will be an aggregation of several key data points from specific partners.” Attributes like polling numbers, fundraising transparency, and number of posts to Facebook and Twitter all go into the points system, because you know the president who spends all of his/her time on Facebook and Twitter has GOT to be the best.

The ultimate goal of the game is to get people registered to vote and become engaged in the election. A beta test will launch soon with a limited number of players, and MTV hopes to open it up to the general public in June.

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