Vote with your wallets: Democracy 3 beta open to pre-orderers

Positech Games has announced that Democracy 3, their latest political strategy game, is now open for pre-orders – and pre-orders will net you beta access.

Democracy 3 has you playing as either President or Prime Minister and makes you responsible for setting policy, changing laws, deciding on which taxes to raise or cut and which government programs to support, and desperately trying to win yourself another term. Except – as in the real world – everyone hates you and every decision you make will cause people to hate you more. Also like in real life, it’s presumably about keeping yourself in power rather than actually changing things for the better.

Democracy 3 has a neural network simulate the motivations and wants of every individual in the country, each of whom will have their own income and levels of complacency and cynicism, although if it manages to match the level of cynicism I displayed in the above paragraph I’ll be amazed. Each may also be a member of a particular voting group, or political party, or pressure group, or… look, it models individual people to a frightening level of detail. Okay?

It’s available for pre-order now, for £20 (well, £17.05, plus VAT). A pre-order will net you a DRM-free copy of the game that will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as a Steam key when the game launches, and immediate access to the beta. You can do so here, or you can have a look at the official site for more details.