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Video games aren’t just for fun – they can make a political point, too. Responding to current affairs is a growing trend in gaming, and it is more evident than ever in the run-up to the US presidential election.

There are dozens of Donald Trump-themed indie titles on . And bigger developers are also incorporating political themes in their games.

Chris Baker, a former creative director at news and entertainment website Buzzfeed, launched with a friend this year. It’s a series of satirical web-based mini games poking fun at conservative attitudes in the US, with more than a million players so far. The most popular title, Thoughts & Prayers, asks the gamer to tap one button to “think” and another to “pray” alternately during a spree of mass shootings. It’s a darkly comic comment on the rhetoric around gun control that follows real-life tragedies.

“We talked about this idea of playable news – very lightweight games,” explains Baker. He describes another game, Bomb the Right Place, as having an educational purpose: “It’s kind of an underhand way to learn Middle East geography.”

Rapid turnaround

The increase in politically minded games has been facilitated by tools such as and , which allow indie developers to turn out games in days or even hours – ensuring that they can stay on top of the news cycle.

“It’s sort of a necessity that games that talk about these subjects have to be created very quickly, or you’ve already lost the conversation,” says Chris Klimas, who created Twine.

He adds that Twine games, which take the form of “choose your own adventure” stories, can easily be shared on social networks because they are web-based. “It works very well with the ongoing conversation that people are having online,” he says.

A survey of more than 4000 US gamers that was commissioned by the Entertainment Software Association last year found that more than 80 per cent were in this year’s presidential election. There’s clearly a market, then, for games that tap into political issues that gamers say they care about – whether it’s climate change, foreign policy or electioneering.

And games have a “unique power” to put players in a first-person scenario, challenging them to think about how to approach a given issue, says indie developer Akira Thompson, founder of US-based . He designed Stop! Thief!! – a satire in which a pickpocket is eventually rewarded with a job at a bank – after he lost his job following the 2008 financial crisis.

Into the mainstream

Thompson says that bigger developers are noticing the rise of games with a point to make and are increasingly including politically challenging content in their releases. One example he gives is , which was released this month. Its portrayal of a southern US city in the 1960s confronts the player with open acts of racism. “This game pulls no punches,” says Thompson. “It really shows you the ugliness.”

Meanwhile, modders – players who modify the content of their favourite games – are creating and sharing custom designs that take on world leaders and their policies, often satirically. One mod available on Steam, for instance, adds Russia under Vladimir Putin as a new scenario in the blockbuster strategy game .

Michael Cook, a computer scientist at Goldsmiths, University of London, says that politically charged video games have the potential to inform players’ opinions, and they should be approached with a critical eye. “We have to make sure that we’re aware of the power of persuasion, misdirection and bias, and keep a critical but open mind,” he says.

Thompson says the onus is also on developers: “We need to think carefully about what we’re saying.”

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