Shadows of Fear: RPG mobilizes women voters in Brazil Gamer Impact Lab

Opportunity

In 2022, women voters played a pivotal role in defining the Brazilian presidential election. They were the largest demographic group who represented the majority of abstentions and held the power to determine who would become the next president of Brazil. The outcome of the first round of the election confirmed that women could change the political landscape and made presidential candidates pay attention to their views and concerns.

However, despite the potential impact they could have on the election, women largely abstained from voting in the first round. This raised concerns among civil society organizations who feared that the abstention rates would increase in the second round, as often happens in Brazilian elections. Such a scenario could have reversed the entire picture and given an advantage to Bolsonaro. So the question remained, how could the candidates ensure that women would mobilize and engage with the election just a few days before it happened?

Audience

We targeted a young, all-woman audience, ranging from 18 to 34 years old, gamers, living in the Southeast Region (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro e Minas Gerais).They were progressives, politically aligned to the center or without any political position.

Theory of Change

If young women gaming streamers were engaged in a narrative RPG campaign, which creatively and innovatively told them about the importance of having women participating politically in the elections, they could be influenced to turn out to vote in the 2nd round to support the election of more democratic candidates in the country.

Action

The Gamer Impact Lab invited 6 women streamers and influencers to play a 4-episode live RPG campaign, “Shadows of Fear”, in which the heroes came together to save the world from corrupt villains who were trying to take over the world. 

What is an RPG?

A Role Playing Game (RPG) is a game in which a master tells a story, and the players, after creating their own characters, play those adventures in the environment created by that narrator. 

Several RPG systems are very well-known, such as GURPS, Dungeons & Dragons (quite famous due to Stranger Things, the Netflix show), and, of course, the Brazilian system Tormenta, in which we staged our campaign created in October. 

Storytelling Strategy

To build the narrative in “Shadows of Fear”, we tried to embed some cues to talk about strategic concepts in politics related to the electoral situation in 2022. We included elements about: political participation, penal populism, fake heroes, misinformation, political violence and political self-esteem.

Along their journey, the heroes dealt with several political concepts. The narrative format of an RPG creates the opportunity for experimentation on that creative approach.

Based on that, we created a story centered on hope, collectivity and the power of women to change their realities. This is the synopsis: 

Altrim is a city in danger. A menace coming from the sea brings fear to its population. Because of this menace, city hero Han Duo and the clergypeople of Tauron seek for a way to protect the population. Altrim forces call for brave warriors to help against this evil menace, and that’s where our heroes play their part.

Attracted to Altrim because of that cry for help, the five heroes will have to fight that menace from the sea. To do so, they must understand how things work in Altrim and the city’s history. They will realize that, despite all its heroes and rousing speeches, not everything is what it seems.

Approach

Creativity

Talking about politics with a young audience can go far beyond the literal talks. Many geek pieces refer to politics without technical, academical explanations of theories. This campaign brings a new, innovative format of developing political narratives to the youth, focused on the storytelling to engage our audience in the messages we want to convey. 

New Audiences

Using new formats, focused on stories which also bring entertainment to our audiences, is a great way to get to audiences less involved with politics. This is the gateway to get our messages to audiences with which we don’t usually engage.

New Channels

Social organizations in general started to master content creation on social media like Twitter and Instagram. Other platforms, however, are not occupied as much by field organizations. With this campaign, we managed to test and learn on new channels, like YouTube and Twitch. 

Development

• Invitations

We invited women influencers to play the session. Together we created the characters they would play in the game. 

• Production

We put together a creative team to come up with the RPG story. We made a partnership with TORMENTA20 and PedroK to stream the sessions.

• Promotion

We created the Twitter page “Shadows of Fear” to promote the RPG. We also wrote press releases. The influencers shared it all on their social media.

• Streaming

From October to November, the sessions were streamed live on Twitch. Every following week we posted them on YouTube. 

• Script

Screenwriters offered live support to the master along the game. And in every episode they adapted the plot according to how it was played. 

• Tracking

Other than the views, we tracked live comments on Twitch chat, YouTube videos and Twitter posts.

We live streamed the RPG sessions on Twitch, on PedroK channel. Live sessions went from Oct. 14th to Nov. 04th, every Friday at 10 p.m. on Twitch, and we reposted them later on YouTube.

We had six influencers taking part in this action, Haru, Preta Witch, Nerissa, Cris Siqueira, Mandy and Anna Schermak, who announced the campaign on their Twitter and Instagram.

The main platforms used by the influencers to promote the RPG were their pages on Twitter and Instagram.

On Twitter, “Shadows of Fear” fans published their own art depicting the characters, showing they engaged with the story.

“I fell in love with this project from the very start, with the way it was built and its purpose <3 Shadows of Fear starts today and it will be awesome!”

Cris Cerqueira / Coxinha Nerd Channel

 

An innovative action which put together only woman streamers for the first time to play a live streamed RPG. 

The action had great results, such as:

• High engagement with episodes almost 3 hours long
• Few viewers leaving during the broadcasts;
• Comments about institutional politics appearing in the broadcast chats;
• Community of viewers created #RenovaOMedo, asking for season 2