Leaders in tug-of-war to win online votes

Some of the India's top political leaders, Dr Manmohan Singh, Lal Krishna Advani and Mayawati to name a few, are competing with each other in the virtual world to win votes.

An India-based gaming company has launched online games, namely Political Olympics, Political War and Segment War, to create awareness among the masses about the positive side of voting as well as to poke fun at politicians.

7Seas Technologies, creator of The Big Fight game during the US presidential election last year, hopes to attract many hits as the US election was fought more on portals, blogs and YouTube rather than on road shows.

Speaking to XPRESS over the phone from Hyderabad, Maruti Shankar, Managing Director of 7Seas Technologies, said, “With nearly 714 million voters eligible to vote in the April-May election, the portal is expected to draw nearly one million hits in the run-up to the elections.''

He added, “The whole idea is to have fun and at the same time send a message to every citizen that one should go and vote.''

Shankar said in order to keep the games simple most of the characters have been created in such a way that they resemble well-known politicians, while care has been taken not to offend anyone.

“We have stuck to the basics. Every character closely resembles a political leader – though animated. If you look at the character of N. Chandrababu Naidu, we have given him his signature trademark – the victory sign,'' said Shankar.

India has roughly 61 million internet users. Though the number is relatively small compared with the US with 215 million users, figures are likely to surge in the coming years.

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