£350k bounty on new parliament game

UK studios and developers are being offered a sizable budget to build an online game hoped to get young people more connected with politics.

With vote turnout rates remaining particularly low for 18-24 year-olds, parliament has set aside £350,000 to fund a game hoped to “engage and immerse” young people. A House of Parliament advert said the game would need to explain “the role of Parliament in scrutinising the government, representing the public, and making laws.”

The money is coming from Parliament’s education sector budget, while the game itself is thought will need to be embeddable on web pages, as Parliament’s own website has a dedicated games page.

The move comes after Parliament this year released a free Flash title, called ‘MP for a week’. Again, this project was focused at bringing the complex issues of parliamentarianism to the young electorate.

Tom O’Leary, the head of education at the Houses of Parliament described educational games as “chocolate covered broccoli”.

He said: “If you stand in front of a classroom of kids to teach them about politics, and get out a book, well you can probably guess what their response would be.”