An 8-year-old game is currently experiencing a surge on Steam. The number of players has increased by 440%. In “Mr. President!” you save Ronald Rump from an assassination attempt. Rump is a parody of the then-candidates for the US presidency, Donald Trump. Due to current events, the game, which had long been forgotten, now has a cynical relevance.
This is “Mr. President!” on Steam:
- The game was released in October 2016 and has 82% positive reviews. That is “very positive.” Mr. President! costs €8.19 (via steam).
- The game was a typical “YouTuber gimmick game”: Well-known YouTubers like PewDiePie or Jacksepticeye played it for a while at release, but it quickly faded into obscurity. In Germany, “Paluten” and Mexify dedicated themselves to the game.
- Although the game has reached millions of views on YouTube, it was never successful on Steam. At its peak, it had 350 concurrent players. For the past 7 years, Mr. President! had almost completely faded from memory, but that has changed now.
Biting parody of Donald Trump and “the liberal media”
What is the game about? In “Mr. President!” you are Dick “Rock-Hard” Johnson, the best bodyguard money can buy. Your job is to protect “Ronald Rump” because the “liberal media” have manipulated the election, damaged Rump’s previously impeccable image, and are now planning an assassination.
As a Secret Service agent, you must save Rump from 50 different assassination attempts by, for instance, throwing yourself in the path of a bullet.
Player numbers quintuple on Steam – but at a low level
Why is it experiencing a surge now? Although no one has worked on the game for years, the current events surrounding presidential candidate Trump have caused Mr. President! to have five times more players than the previous month at its peak.
With the sniper attack on Trump (via tagesschau), player numbers increased almost immediately, but at a low level. At its peak, 87 people played simultaneously.
This is being discussed: On reddit, parallels are drawn to other games that experienced a resurgence due to the “Reality mirrors fiction” phenomenon. The submarine drama is especially mentioned.
In June 2023, the world discussed the submarine “Titan,” which was on its way to the Titanic. The discussion at that time boosted the player numbers of a very good horror game on Steam that deals with a similar scenario: Sales of a horror game on Steam rise after submarine accident of the Titan: “Feels so wrong”
