Tensions are high this November 5th as, if you needed any reminding, it’s election day and the United States of America will be choosing either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris as the country’s big boss for the next four years.
We don’t often get into politics here on EventHubs, but there have been some president-related stories in the fighting game community over the last few years that we felt might be fun to look back on today. From the time Harada seriously wanted to put Trump in Tekken to Bill Clinton’s brush with and eventual inclusion in Guilty Gear, continue on to see some of the times fighting games and the US presidency crossed paths.
A quarter century ago Bill Clinton was leader of the nation and one of the controversial issues of the day was violence in children’s media. The first fighting game franchise that’s inevitably going to come to mind when you consider violent children’s media and the 1990’s has to be Mortal Kombat, but that’s not the one Bill had his eyes set on.
Instead, Clinton brought a magazine ad for a little game called Guilty Gear to one of his speeches in the White House Rose Garden. The ad had an (admittedly clever) play on words that did not sit well with the sitting president.
“Here’s an ad that turns the argument I just made on its head: Psychiatrists say it’s important to feel something when you kill,” said Clinton about a different unnamed game.
“And then it goes on to say, you ought to get this technology because it bumps and you feel it. It says: Every sensation, every vibration, every mutilation, nine programmable weapons buttons. Customizable feedback software. Push the stick that pushes back and feel your pain. And here’s one that’s the most unbelievable of all. It says: Kill your friends guilt-free,” finished the President.
i cannot believe this pic.twitter.com/hvJUMi7yA3
— juno (@happycalcium_) January 12, 2022
The narrative doesn’t end there, however, as some 20 years later Guilty Gear Strive creators (the game’s story takes place almost entirely in the White House, by the way) put an obvious homage to Bill Clinton in a prominent background painting.
The year was 2016 and Donald Trump had just won the election. Tekken 7 Director Katsuhiro Harada and Producer Michael Murray were in San Francisco when Harada brought up the idea of putting Trump in Tekken 7 as a playable character.
“Me and Michael Murray were in San Francisco the night Donald Trump won the presidential election,” tweeted Harada. “I remember I asked him (Michael), ‘If I recall correctly, there is no licensing fee for making character goods or games about the President of the United States, is there? There’s a lot of buzz around it, so why don’t we put him in the game?'” he continued.
“Michael and I had a blast talking about Trump’s fighting style and the Rage Arts idea for a moment, then cooled down and sealed the idea. Why did I seal that idea? Because the driver of the UBER we were in at the time started blasting off at 200 km/h while calling out ‘FXXX Donald Trump,'” finished Harada.
If a random taxi driver put the kibosh on this idea with an emotional outburst, others likely would have before Harada and Murray got remotely close to bringing it to fruition. That said, can you imagine if Bandai actually put a president in Tekken as a playable character?
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss him as a hidden character in Street Fighter 4 or 5, but Barack Obama was indeed playable in a Street Fighter game at one point. The time was the mid 2000’s and the game was called Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation, a PC venture Capcom teamed up with action figure company Revoltech to create.
Mouse Generation only featured Ryu, Chun-Li, Zangief, Guile and Ken as far as Street Fighter characters, but also offered fighters from Rival Schools and a collection of other non-fighting game properties.
From beyond left field, developers also chose to include a tuxedo-wearing Barack Obama on the roster. They added him on Valentine’s Day and… that’s about all we know. Game services were shut down on August 31, 2009, about a year and a half after initial launch.
There isn’t much left of Mouse Generation these days, though we do have a few screen shots, one of which features the Obama model:
Click images for larger versions
During the previous election cycle, some five years ago now, Democratic candidate Andrew Yang made a move to garner support from younger crowds by creating a president-themed fighting game: Yang2020 Path to Presidency.
Though it was more a gag than anything, PtP actually did come out and actually did feature both a story and versus mode. Users could play as long shot candidate Yang as he fights his way toward the Oval Office, unlocking additional content such as stages and characters to use in versus.
You can still purchase and play Path to Presidency on Steam for $2.99. You can watch the trailer to see what kind of action (such as brawling with Joe Rogan, Donald Trump, and MSNBS anchors) the game offers:
Back in 2017 we found out about a handful of character designs from legendary designer Akira “Akiman” Yasuda that never wound up making it onto playable rosters. One of these characters was a “fighting president” intended for Street Fighter 4.
The idea of a fighting president indeed did come to fruition as G was added as Season 3 DLC for Street Fighter 5 in 2018, but where G looks to be inspired mainly by Abraham Lincoln, this fighting president looked a lot like someone else.
With a red power tie and eccentric blonde hair, the concept art for this unnamed character looks suspiciously like Donald Trump, perhaps depending on whom you ask.
