It is an online game of strategy, where attack, wit and courage are rewarded and weakness is penalized in a brutal environment where only the strong survive. No, it is not World of Warcraft or even Battlefield, but Fantasy Congress.
Fantasy Congress, an online political strategy game modeled after already-popular fantasy sports leagues, was launched last spring to attract players to the world of politics. And according to Andrew Lee, a Claremont McKenna College student and creator of the game, the Boston University community is one of the forerunners in the game.
“The idea in playing the game is that you see two words together which almost never appear in the same sentence: Congress and fun,” he said.
“You have an amazing hockey team, as well as amazing political activism [in Boston]” Lee continued, adding that many Bostonians have shown interest for the upcoming election.
After participating in fantasy sports leagues himself, Lee said he saw the possibility for a government-focused game that would challenge aficionados’ knowledge and skill. He said he spent all of the 2005 summer smoothing out the game’s logistics with the help of his computer-savvy friends.
“I bet people have thought about this before, but being able to actually do this is huge,” Lee said.
In order to play the game, a player has to create an account, join a league and then draft a team of real U.S. Congressmen. Players score points by using political savvy to decide when to “play” certain Congressmen and when to bench them.
Because every member of Congress’s political views and approach to pushing bills differ, players must choose wisely by using prior political knowledge, Lee said.
Instead of judging a legislator merely on moral values or political party, Lee challenges players to question whether that Congressman is an effective official.
“This is the one-stop shop for Congress,” Lee said of the Fantasy Congress website.
Lee said the Claremont McKenna College campus is very supportive of the game and the success of its creation.
“So far all of our peers are having a great time,” Lee said.
With more than 17,000 regular users registered, Lee said he and his friends had never envisioned that the game would become so popular.
However, Lee said the site is far from perfect.
Many problems have arisen after the influx of users, as the site was not formatted to accommodate than 200,000 users a day. Yet, despite minor complications, Lee said he is proud of what has been accomplished.
“It’s been a wild ride, at least for this week,” he said. “But this is how things start.”
Lee said he and his friends hope to take the game to the next level by incorporating the impact of public opinion through television, newspapers and radio into the game.
“We know that it’s important to have media represented,” Lee said. “Our one hope is instead of having people yell ‘Touchdown’, we want them to yell ‘Public Law’.”
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said he supports of the idea of Fantasy Congress, adding that it could be “especially helpful for college students who have a little more time on their hands.”
Lynch said the game could encourage students to learn more about the process of moving bills through the political process.
Geared toward college students, Lee and the Fantasy Congress executives have also created a FaceBook group with hundreds of interested students — including students at BU.
“Political junkies like me support candidates in much the same fanatical and blind way that fans support their sports teams,” said College of Arts and Sciences senior and former Student Union official Marc Weber. “You grow personally attached to your candidate or team and come to, at least partially, define yourself by it.
“While I would like to say that my primary motivate is the improvement of the nation’s welfare through representative government, I’m neither that na’ve nor that optimistic,” Weber said. “Politics takes on more of an entertainment value for political junkies like me. For me, campaigns are like my playoffs and elections are my Superbowl.”