Commence Games

'What do politics have to do with me?'

The world is facing an increasing apathy towards politics. This has led to declining civic engagement, plummeting voter turnouts and a growing number of passive spectators on a global scale. Globally, citizens face persistent gaps in awareness and understanding of politics. 

Voter turnout in contemporary democracies has fallen to below 67%, after 2010, from more than 77% in the late 1960s.

'What do politics have to do with me?' rings in our ears again.

Not to mention, the significant disillusionment with the political process itself. Educational institutions are experiencing the disconnect as well. With civic education becoming an uninteresting and disengaging subject for students, and the confinement of politics to the halls of the Political Science department in universities. 

Beyond the chaos and the activism, how does politics come to play?

We exist because politics are often intimidating — almost taboo — when they should be openly discussed.

Commence Games is building a catalyst for change in political discourse, globally. We increase political knowledge and activate engagement using our interactive game-based approach.

We make politics fun and accessible. 

GAMES: We develop interactive political games designed to educate and engage people in politics. 

EVENTS: We create interactive experiences for game-heads to gather, learn and play with politics. 

STUDIO: We develop game-based solutions for corporations, educational institutions and non-profits.

Our latest game; OFFLIMITS, a strategic card game designed to immerse players in a world of political scenarios. Best part of the game is… you don’t need to be an expert in politics to play.

Play and you’ll win an actual understanding of politics… oh and you’ll also win the game.

The card game is trilingual, global, intergenerational, and strategic.

We've also developed a citizen & civic education game for children aged 8-12 to be played during afterschool programs.  

We're currently working on growing OFFLIMITS' impact in universities:

• Political Strategy Gamification: An in-class session with students in the Politics Department where they get to strategize through a game; OFFLIMITS. This game could also be extended to content specific to a course. 
• Politics and Business: An interdepartmental session where students play a political game; OFFLIMITS, to understand the intersection of politics and business beyond the basics.

For the seasoned political enthusiast and those just dipping their toes into the world of politics.

We work with:
- the GenZ digital native who are extremely tech-savvy and know how to filter information online, but struggle with understanding and contextualising news.

- the Cautious Millennial who wants to be self-directed and independent, but is stuck between the offline and online worlds.

and 

- the Grandpa who is labeled as close-minded and resistant to change but wants to show involvement. The element blocking them in their growth is that they approach opinions towards history as their story versus their opponent's.

We also work with corporations, educational institutions and non-profits. 

We target multiple locations, building our products to be global and localizing them when needed. 

Countries we've hit so far: 

- Lebanon,

- France,

- United States,

We're growing to push into the following countries with a few customers & partnerships in progress:

- Greece,

- United Kingdom,

- Canada,

- Netherlands.

We're a founding team of seasoned impact entrepreneurs with an international experience, remotely working to gamify politics. 

The solution - OFFLIMITS - is tested at 10+ community events to iterate & tailor it to different views or levels of understanding. We implement testing protocols on all of our games and products.

The Commence Games team works as the service partner to UNESCO's Beirut Branch. We gamify new media law, and are now working to co-host events around the country with politicians, journalists and media students.

Commence Games is entirely bootstrapped, meaning we've not raised 'investment capital' but rather are working to get the people involved through community building.

We've built our game and business in public, and grew our mission. We've...

• Sold out our first game (MVP) in 8 months,
• Hosted 15+ events with 400+ attendees 18 to 65 year olds,
• Developed 4 political games to date,
• Been featured 3 times in media outlets, 
• Worked on 3 international partnerships,
• Hosted 2 game sessions at a global convention,
• Received 2 grants totalling at $22,000.

Currently, we are in the middle of a crowdfunding campaign to preorder OFFLIMITS and are about to host demos in the MIT Gaming Conference.

We are looking to gain visibility, networking with an education community, build partnerships with innovations, gain mentorship from experts, and also receive funding to support the integration of the new educational institution project (to develop civic & political engagement). We are also looking to use the funding to support the expansion of OFFLIMITS with universities and colleges.

We've created a new dimension of engagement. 

Politics and gaming might seem like an unlikely pair, but they have the potential to revolutionize how we engage with real-world issues. Political games offer players a unique opportunity to step into the shoes of decision-makers, explore complex issues, and make choices that impact virtual societies.

We educate and engage people in politics without being polarizing or biased.

“From 0 to an actual understanding of politics!”

One thing you probably didn't know about our ethos?! Games are a fun, afterwork affair, which we've translated into a part-time job for everyone. Producing games isn't just our work; it's our pastime. So why not make that part of the business model?!

- Tracy Saad //// Founder, CEO

- Sara Dsouki //// CSO

Beyond our main founding team, we partner with different experts in gaming and politics to ensure the outcome is as educational as it is unbiases. Are currently looking into expanding our human capital.

3 years

We have an interdisciplinary, POC, women-led, team and are working to grow our team with a balance of gender and backgrounds. We have spent thousands of hours co-testing our solutions with politics and gaming partners in the field. 

The founding team is made up of people of color.

B2C B2B B2G B2B2C  GAMES: We develop interactive political games designed to educate and engage people in politics. 

B2C B2B  EVENTS: We create interactive experiences for game-heads to gather, learn and play with politics. 

B2B  STUDIO: We develop game-based solutions for corporations, educational institutions and non-profits.

1. Increase sales of OFFLIMITS in different countries and improve scalability of our multilingual games.
2. Expand in-house monitoring and evaluation team for improved impact reporting.
3. Raise funds from multi-year grants in education, political awareness spaces.
4. Raise at least 30% of revenue from studio track work with entities such as MSF, UNESCO, YP, UNICEF, UNDEF, etc.
5. Develop a pipeline for research-based funding through universities whereby research efforts could be cross-applied to monitoring efforts.