The Politics of Care: The Possibilities and Limits of Video Games for Political Campaign

This article examines two 2022 mobile games, Lugawan ni Leni and Let Leni Lead, released during the Philippine presidential campaign to support Leni Robredo's candidacy. Drawing on Ian Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric and his framework for advergames, the author proposes the category of "propagandistic advergames," games that sell a political candidate much as commercial advergames sell products. The analysis focuses on how each game's mechanics express the "Robredo style" of politics, which combines public service performance with personal approachability, and on the broader political context of patriarchal patronage politics and online disinformation that shaped the campaign.

The study finds that Lugawan ni Leni uses the lugaw, a humble rice porridge that had become a campaign symbol, to frame service to others as inherently rewarding, while Let Leni Lead translates the campaign's house-to-house volunteer strategy and its focus on winning hearts into an infinite-runner format. The author argues that both games were well suited to casual players and mobile audiences, given high smartphone access in the Philippines, but their download figures fell far short of earlier Duterte-themed games. The article concludes that the games' idealized, comfortable depictions of politics mainly preached to existing supporters and risked lulling players into complacency, leaving open the question of how such games might translate procedural rhetoric into sustained political action beyond voting.