Before 2016, world leaders only appeared in video games like Civilization, in which players set out to build empires as historical figures like George Washington or Mahatma Gandhi. As a would-be world leader, you can establish trade routes, discover world wonders, and attempt victories via diplomacy.
In 2016, that all seems so quaint.
This year, at least five video games starring president-elect Donald Trump have been released on the popular PC-gaming platform Steam. They span the full spectrum of Trump support—very pro to very, very anti—and range from a violent, wall-building adventure (“Make America Great Again: The Trump Presidency”) to literally just hitting Trump with a baseball bat (“TrumPiñata”).
According to the website SteamSpy, which tracks sales on Steam, tens of thousands of players have downloaded these games. Here’s your definitive guide, in order of popularity:
Mr.President!
Released on Oct. 10, this game invites players to take a bullet for a president named “Ronald Rump.” “You play as Dick ‘Rock-Hard’ Johnson,” the game’s description says, “a bulletproof man, the best bodyguard money can buy. He is sworn to protect the most hated presidential candidate of all time.”
The goal is to simple: Jump in front of “Rump” as people shoot at him during speeches. ”Liberal media has rigged the election and tarnished his glowing public image,” the description says. “Now they are trying to end his life. You need to leap, flip, fling, roll, and many other verbs to get in between Rump and certain death.”
Price: $4.99
Downloads/purchases: 48,601 (± 5,813)*
User reviews: 730 total (74% positive)
Make America Great Again: The Trump Presidency
Described as “a Pro-Donald Trump presidential simulation,” this game allows players to control Trump as he conducts his day-to-day presidential business. Naturally, that business includes hanging from a helicopter while shooting a handgun at ISIS militants, building a wall on the US-Mexico border, and invading China. According to its trailer, the game is inspired by the controversial Reddit group r/The_Donald, and is ultimately a playable version of the hard-to-parse, absurdist support for the president-elect that pervades that group, and much of the internet. To wit, one reviewer on Steam wrote: ”The best part about this game is that it simulates real life.”
Price: $2.99
Downloads/purchases: 40,592 (± 5,312)*
User reviews: 1,008 total (90% positive)
Make America Great Again (again)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there have been two Trump-themed video games that play on the president-elect’s now-famous campaign slogan. This one is a 2D side-scrolling game in which the player controls Trump as he, surprise surprise, fights ISIS. The game is absent political messaging; instead, it seems an independent game developer saw Trump’s growing cult of personality and decided to capitalize on it.
Price: $2.99
Downloads/purchases: 2,912 (± 1,423)*
User reviews: 21 total (52% positive)
TrumPiñata
Of all the Trump-themed video games, this is probably the darkest. In this virtual-reality experience, the president-elect is but a piñata hanging from a tree. Every time the player hits Trump with a baseball bat, he says one of his famous phrases, such as “I know words, I have the best words.” …And that’s pretty much it. That’s the game.
Reads the description, “TrumPiñata is a political piñata experience you won’t want to miss.”
Price: $0.99
Downloads/purchases: 2,160 (± 1,494)*
User reviews: 24 total (58% positive)
Trump Simulator VR
Released about a week before the election, this virtual-reality game puts you in Trump’s shoes ahead of a big speech. You have to go over a to-do list that includes “shred tax documents” and “feed Twitter addiction.” But the game’s description gets at a more sober mission:
Frustrated with the election and how so many controversies seemed to pile up and be forgotten, the jokes in the game are intended to inspire outside research—for example, what’s with the hands circled in gold sharpie? Are those real tweets he actually wrote?
We are passionate about finding ways to engage our peers with our political system, and we thought a virtual-reality game would be a novel, entertaining medium to learn more about the Republican candidate. That being said, Trump Simulator does not comment on everything and should not be taken too seriously….There is nothing serious about Trump as a candidate.
Price: $0.99
Downloads/purchases: 1,092 (± 871)*
User reviews: 34 total (82% positive)
In addition to these five titles, there was also a “Trump Rising” expansion to the wartime strategy game Supreme Ruler. A bit more serious than its peers in Trump gaming, this one seems to attempt to actually simulate the geopolitical ramifications of a Trump presidency.
There were also two games released on Steam earlier this year focused on the presidential race itself. The Political Machine 2016 let players run for US president as “one of dozens of past or present presidential candidates” or a candidate of their making, while Megalo Polis asks players if they “have what it takes to survive the cutthroat competition of the campaign trail and become the next US president.”
Past presidents (and presidential candidates) haven’t gotten nearly as much gaming attention—there’s nothing for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or John McCain. That could mean video-game development is simple enough now to make games-as-cultural-commentary more feasible. Or the politics of 2016 are so unique that they demand a wide, wide variety of coverage.
*Note: SteamSpy collects data from Steam’s API and uses it to estimate the number of people who own Steam games. Those who own Steam games may have purchased them, or downloaded them for free during a promotion. (None of these games were given away free in promotions, but it’s an important distinction.) Because these numbers are estimates, each comes with a ± margin of error.