A game may make a political statement through its dialogue and plot, but also through the actions its rules permit, reward, or make impossible. To assess it, identify the game’s concrete choices about power, identity, conflict, and social order, then distinguish what the game shows from what you infer about its message, its creators’ intentions, or its effects on players.
First, decide what you mean by “political”
“Political” can mean formal politics—government, public policy, parties, or a current conflict. It can also mean broader questions of power, identity, representation, social norms, and whose interests a system serves. In game culture, the word is sometimes used simply to mark disagreement or opposition. Jørgensen and Campbell’s qualitative study of game enthusiasts in Norway examines these competing uses, including the phrase “keeping politics out of games”; it describes that sample and discourse, not all players everywhere. Read the study in Game Studies.
State which meaning you are using before making a case. A game can engage with political questions without naming a party or presenting a policy debate. Conversely, the presence of a politician or a real-world setting does not, by itself, establish what argument the game makes.
Look at what the game depicts and what it lets you do
Start with evidence a reader could verify in a playthrough: scenes, dialogue, characters, institutions, objectives, available actions, rule effects, resource flows, win conditions, and consequences. Then separate the observation from the interpretation. “The player is ordered to enforce a curfew” describes an event; “the game presents state control as necessary” is an interpretation that needs support from how the story and systems frame that order.
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Check the story and representation
- Whose perspective structures the story, and who is visible only through someone else’s viewpoint?
- Which groups or experiences are absent, marginalized, or treated as interchangeable?
- How does dialogue frame institutions, social groups, and competing interests?
- Does the plot endorse an apparent position, complicate it, or leave it unresolved?
Check participation and agency
- What can the player choose, control, refuse, or change?
- Can the player take a meaningful alternative to the main route, or is apparent choice cosmetic?
- Whose safety or interests do the objectives ask the player to protect?
- What does the game do when the player disobeys, abstains, or tries to leave?
Check the rules and rewards
A game can communicate through procedures as well as plot. Ian Bogost’s account of “procedural rhetoric” draws attention to ideology embodied in a game’s computational structure and to arguments expressed through rules. Ask what actions are possible, which actors have agency, what the system rewards or penalizes, and what outcomes it treats as normal or inevitable. A rule is not automatically a political argument, but repeated rewards, constraints, and consequences can help establish what the game makes seem desirable or unavoidable. Bogost, “Playing Politics: Videogames for Politics, Activism, and Advocacy” (2006).
Use a framework as a set of prompts, not a score
A 2025 systematic review by Soto de la Cruz, Cortés Gómez, and Lacasa examined 25 journal articles published between January 2013 and September 2023. It proposes the PRICE dimensions as a way to organize analysis:
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- Participation: How does the player take part in the issue or conflict?
- Representation: Whose identities, perspectives, and experiences are shown or left out?
- Ideology: What assumptions about society or power are built into the game?
- Conflict: Which interests clash, and how does the game frame that struggle?
- Education: What might the game invite players to understand, question, or learn?
These are useful questions, not a validated rating system. The review does not establish a universal numerical scale for how political a game is. Soto de la Cruz, Cortés Gómez, and Lacasa, “Contemporary Political Discourse in Digital Games: A Systematic Approach” (2025).
Trace how the game handles power and social order
Look at who can make decisions, command resources, use force, set rules, or define what counts as success. Consider whether institutions protect some characters while constraining others, whether inequality is challenged or treated as part of the natural order, and whether the player’s progress depends on preserving or changing that arrangement.
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Tuominen and Sotamaa’s 2021 peer-reviewed close reading of the Red Dead Redemption series is an example of examining designed social order and the production conditions under which a game is made. It demonstrates a method, not a definitive interpretation of every game or proof that every commercial title makes the same kind of argument. Tuominen and Sotamaa, “‘Outlaws to the End’ – A Study of the Social and Political Reality of Rockstar Games’ West” (2021).
Keep observation, interpretation, intent, and effect separate
Political claims about a game can refer to different things, and each requires different evidence:
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| Claim | What it means | Evidence to look for |
|---|---|---|
| The game depicts X | A content observation. | Scenes, dialogue, characters, objectives, or rules that show X. |
| The design makes X seem normal or desirable | An interpretation of the game’s framing and systems. | How the story, available actions, rewards, penalties, and outcomes handle X. |
| The creators intended to endorse X | A claim about people’s intentions. | Evidence about the creators’ stated aims or decision-making; the game alone does not establish private intent. |
| Players will believe X | A claim about audience effects. | Evidence about player responses; a reading of the game alone cannot establish what all players will think. |
Do not treat evidence for one level as proof of another. A game’s rules may support a political interpretation without showing what its developers privately believed, and a game’s apparent message does not determine every player’s response.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Test another plausible reading before reaching a verdict
Before settling on an interpretation, ask whether the same mechanic could support a different reading. Does the story complicate what the rules appear to reward? Do player choices meaningfully change the result, or do they lead back to the same outcome? Could the game be depicting a system in order to criticize it rather than endorsing it? If the evidence supports more than one reading, explain the ambiguity instead of forcing a simple label.
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Build a specific, qualified conclusion
Name the political question, cite the strongest evidence from both story and systems, and make clear where the interpretation stops. For example: “The game can be read as normalizing centralized authority because progression rewards compliance and offers few viable alternatives. That reading describes the design; it does not establish what the developers privately intended.”
For optional further reading, the MIT Press lists Ian Bogost’s Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, a book about how games make arguments, including through procedural rhetoric. The paperback is listed under ISBN 9780262514880. MIT Press book page.
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