[h1]The Political Machine launches May 2, 2024[/h1] The past couple weeks we’ve been talking through the major features introduced for The Political Machine 2024. With all the new major features covered, we wanted to now highlight an important part of the process in developing this series every 4 years, issue updates! First we figure out nationally what are the generalized current top issues as a basis of understanding. We do this by looking at a good number of national research polls and news outlets across the political spectrum. Next, we break down a generalized top issue into relevant topics. For example, one of the top issues for the 2024 election is about Economy. As much as we can make an issue about the direct thing, it is very much nuanced and can be broken down into more issues. For example Economy as a wider topic can be broken down into “Addressing Inflation”, “Higher Minimum Wage”, “Individual Tax Cuts”, and more. Then we apply importance and positions of these issues to states to give each state a more unique identity. Based on the breaking down of the bigger issue subject, we refine it by looking at local news sources and state government webpages. For example, we take a general issue like the Environment and we apply certain broken down topics more meaningfully. For example, states like Florida and Hawaii will care more about Disaster Preparedness because of the higher frequency of natural disasters. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/1ad32ac4ae9021b917399f9603f9ed5bd818a883.png[/img] Meanwhile, Maryland and other northeastern coastal states with less extreme weather events would care more about Marine Environmental Protection. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/3d15cdbe5ad8ec9ca8f3a62dc684a1ef6b87d734.png[/img] And since California are leading in ESG legislation early this year, that topic as well as Green Jobs are a more prominent as a response. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/e722dec297b862493546cf81b16eacabd1c2a891.png[/img] Finally we extensively review the issue updates by running it through internally and with our playtest team. Once the play testers on all sides of the political spectrum sign off and a general consensus is reached, we know our work is complete. Don’t most people in the country care about the same things? That is true, but if we did that without regionally differing and breaking down the subjects of major top issues, the states would all have the same issue topic strategy. That being said, there will be issues that show up in most states as we have to be sure our polling makes sense and is representative of each of the top general issues. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/127f2470f7e6afc4eb83e55c25098b964b994017.png[/img] The reason why we set apart states with different but similar topics is so that way players are incentivized to talk about more issues during their Primaries or presidential campaign in terms of gameplay. It also sets more room for players to personalize their stances for custom candidates. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44740336/14d5112b71d644ff392320c8447ae239d668381e.png[/img] One of the great things about The Political Machine 2024 is that you can talk and raise awareness on any issue you choose and see how the affects the rest of the country. By talking on issues in states, you raise your issue score, which is important to the factor of boosting polling. We’d like to say thanks to those who have given feedback thus far for us to improve this game and we encourage everyone to keep sending in their suggestions! Please look forward to the full release of The Political Machine 2024 on May 2, 2024!