Dear Readers,
Last night I watched the NBC livestream on YouTube, where they added up projected electoral votes of the US presidential election. Not being American(I'm Irish), I didn't have a vote, so there was no actual gameplay for me, but man it was addictive! It was quite similar to a "Free to play" game.
Over the past year I played some of the Android free-to-play games like Sonic Dash and Smurfs Epic Run. In these games there's a lot of waiting to do for energy to fill up or gauges to fill up before you can unlock some kind of result.
That's what it was like watching this livestream all night. There was a countdown timer in the corner telling me how much time was left until the next set of states settled on their votes. Then the states would usually light up blue for Hillary Clinton, or red for Donald Trump. It was often either too early or too close to call, which got aggravating!
It was a good way to learn about US political geography and see where the states and their borders were and also somewhat of US physical geography, like that little island that's part of Keeweenaw County in Michigan. Just what is there? I gotta look it up!
Lester Holt, a face I recognise from the moderator of the first presidential debate, would now and again announce results for states and project them up on a tall building. In between announcements were news round table discussions and "what if" situations to fill time.
The first results came in and Trump immediately had a lead on Clinton. The game was afoot! After a while, more states came in like New York and Vermont, where Hillary won.
Over the next while, all eyes were on Florida. It's densely populated and has many electoral votes, so that's why so much focus was put on it. Sometimes it was leaning red, sometimes it was leaning blue, but it was unbelievably close and very exciting nearly the whole time. Hillary won the more densely populated counties, but Trump won the very most of the other counties here. All eyes were on Ohio as well, as it has the reputation of being the "bellwether", which is a term I only learned recently. Trump won both of these states.
Many more states from the south and middle of the country where the red just spread like wildfire. Trump leaped over 100 votes with Clinton lagging but catching up with the more densely populated and urban areas.
Then things got very exciting. California and other neighbouring states on the west coast turned blue and Clinton shot up past Trump but he was still very much on her tail. Both still a good ways away from the 270 finish line though.
Trump then got more states and boosted past Clinton again. This is where things got stuck for ages. Trump was in the mid 200s and Clinton was in the early 200s. Time was up for the ballot everywhere but states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin took ages to finish their counting. It stayed like this for an agonisingly long time and there wasn't even a free-to-play like countdown at this stage.
NBC did plenty more "what ifs" and round table discussions and showed people waiting. Clinton fans looked very sad and Trump fans looked anxious but optimistic. Things were close and there was still a possibility for either, but it got increasingly likely that Trump was going to win and the other side were losing hope.
At this point, if it was a free-to-play game, you'd nearly look for a micro-transaction menu to see if you could speed things up a bit. Then, as if it was a Game Genie wish come true, a report came through that Clinton conceded. After some time, NBC showed the stage where Mike Pence came out and it was official. Trump then came out with his family and made his victory speech.
So yeah, that was the game! Very addictive and kept me up all night so it did!
As for the candidates themselves? I like both of them very much. This meant that the result would always be bittersweet for me. I'm very happy that Donald Trump won, because I think he'll be a great president, but I'm also very sad that Hillary Clinton lost, because I think she would've been a great president too. Oh the look of heartbreak on so many faces... it was very affecting. :( I would've felt the same no matter who won or lost.
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