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GamesRadar
GamesRadar
Technology
Dustin Bailey

Strategy games keep giving players the most depressing insights into real-world politics and economics

Victoria 3

As much handwringing as has been done over the idea of 'politics in video games' over the years, one thing's for sure: strategy games have never shied away from the topic. Politics - that is, the activities of state - are integral to any game about running a government, and everywhere from Victoria 3 to Dwarf Fortress, players keep finding themselves learning accidental, often depressing lessons about the political and economic systems that govern the real world.

A quick glance at any discussion forum for a government-focused strategy game will show you a bunch of thread titles that would be just as appropriate as headers in an anti-capitalist pamphlet. For example, from the Victoria 3 subreddit: "If your economy is laissez faire, continually staying in small wars really helps out."

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