Playful satire or weaponized play? Why White House video games are so problematic

If the White House wanted to teach the public about ongoing social issues, it could have built video games for its website that consider the various challenges surrounding those issues.

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What if someone modified the video game Snake, where the snake’s tail grows longer the more it eats, but instead, the game involved a border guard who creates a growing tail of arrested migrants?

This is actually a mini-game — a short, simplified video game — that is now available on the United States government’s website alongside other game options that focus on healthy school lunches and a “Trump savings account.” The migrant game is called “Rio Run.”

These games use simple, clear messaging to deliver political messages under the guise of light-hearted entertainment. By hiding behind the “it’s just a game” defence, they weaponize play via political satire instead of harnessing the educational potential of video games to explore complex issues.

While their mechanics are persuasively designed — embedding arguments directly into player actions — they remain overly simplistic. As a researcher and serious-games designer, I believe government platforms could go much further to truly inform and engage the public with games.

The history of political games

Video games are and have always been political. Famed studios like Molleindustria have built a variety of mini-games that take political stances, including The Best Amendment’s portrayal of gun violence in the U.S. or the McDonald’s video game critiquing corporate America’s global impact.

This is not the first time the U.S. government has used games. The now-shuttered Global Engagement Center produced educational games about disinformation and how intentionally twisted information can deceive people.

Its games “Cat Park” and “Harmony Square” were shown to have helped people recognize false information online and inspired a sub-genre of educational games, like my own about online conspiracies.

Yet these differ from the White House’s newly released mini-games in both goal and design.

Playing, not learning

The arcade.gov games focus on a singular idea. While the Global Engagement Centre’s games were meant to inform (with some political sub-objectives), the White House “arcade” clearly doesn’t intend to teach.

These titles rely on a familiar tactic used by U.S. President Donald Trump — using satire and trolling to elicit reactions and normalize political views. Through game play, the games sneak political arguments past players without inviting debate. Even games that appear policy-oriented, such as “Healthy School Lunch” or “Flappy Bill,” share the platform with overtly partisan titles like “Rio Run.”

The games may seem harmless and unlikely to steer players en masse towards a political stance, but they use a satirical design to reinforce binary arguments. Scholars refer to this as ambivalence — content that is funny to some and serious to others. Similar to internet memes, the seemingly innocent ambivalence is weaponized to make a point that will resonate with some and frustrate others.

Researchers call this “memetic warfare.” Games like “Rio Run” may seem innocent to some, but they reinforce simple arguments about immigration and border security that fail to effectively and honestly inform the public about these issues.

Games as propaganda or education

Games don’t have to work this way. In fact, some do the opposite. The growing number of information-literacy games and associated research show that games can build a healthy skepticism within players to help them deal with manipulation.

Comparatively speaking, educational games can help learners reflect on information environments, whereas the U.S. government’s mini-games make an argument without asking for critical thought. It’s a difference in design.

Here’s an example: Since 2024, I have worked with high school teachers to create The Feed, a game about social media manipulation. We designed player actions to model social media environments and tactics.

Players use tactics modelled from the four Ds of disinformation — dismiss, distort, distract, dismay. They post content within the game that, over time, recreates online harms like flame wars. The game doesn’t make a simple right or wrong argument, but lets people play with tactics, strategies and approaches that incentivize them to contemplate information so they ask: “How does online manipulation work?”

Critical thinking

Games can push a point of view, but designing them effectively can help players critically think about the material. Snake doesn’t ask players to think about the diet of a snake; Rio Run doesn’t ask them to think about the politics or personhood behind border control. Yet, games can use play to examine the nuances of some of these themes.

If the White House wanted to teach the public about savings accounts, immigration or healthy school lunches through play, it could have built games that consider the various challenges that accompany these initiatives — or at the very least, offer educational resources to go with them.

Instead, these games make memetic-style arguments without anything that digs deeper into the issues at hand. Favouring memes over instruction reinforces party politics that often polarize rather than building a meaningful public conversation on the topics behind them.

Recognizing this, it’s important for players and designers to find titles that let them play critically — and ignore the slop that simply reiterates talking points with no discussion or critical thinking.
Scott DeJong receives funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Tags: Academic Journalism, The Conversation, The Conversation Academic News