With D-day fast approaching, chai kadais and politicians’ quarters alike are buzzing. Candidates are feeling the last minute jitters, fervently campaigning in their constituencies, while voters amusedly watch the election drama unfold. The politicians are politicking, the voters are watching and the analysts are analyzing.
If you’d like a method to the madness, Chennai based startup Potatolive can help. The startup is giving meaning to the term, 'Politics is just a game.' 234 seats is a fantasy league game where players can field real candidates from constituencies, and determine their chances of winning in percentage. And this isn’t just a click-and-go game.
“We want strategy. We want our players to go look up the politicians, find out more about them. How’s their track record, how are they likely to win,” says Santhosh Subramanian, founder of Potatolive. And you’d finish the game, knowing your candidates.
234 seats starts the user off with 10 mandatory “star” constituencies, and 5 constituencies that they can pick themselves. Stay constituencies are determined based on whichever has had the closest contests in the past. Next, you pick the margin by which they’re likely to win, preferably not on guesswork. “The end goal of the player is to smartly pick a winning team and predict the results as close as possible to the actual,” said Subramanian. On announcement of the results, the closest gets a cash award and a ‘Kingmaker’ citation.
Fantasy league, or rotos are primarily sports-based, but now there’s a fantasy league for everything including the Oscars and the US Congress. While Potatolive’s model seems similar, Fantasy Congress had links and research included in the gameplay to help with strategy and as well as a candidate’s track record and strength. Santosh plans to incorporate data into the game more during the 2019 parliamentary polls.
"While you need to have a general understanding of local issues, it's a fun space for people who love strategy and want to understand politics," says Santhosh, whose first tryst with making political awareness more accessible began by voting NOTA. "I believe, if you know your candidates well enough, you won't necessarily have to resort to that," he explains.
May 19 couldn't arrive any faster.