In 2007 four Yale and one Columbia student founded GXC, a team-based social gaming network that hosts free conquest games. Its latest breakout, GoCrossPoliticalBash08.com: an online battle for the Presidency in which students compete for a candidate’s team against other candidate teams from around the country. Students log on and are charged with taking over as much political territory as possible, defending what is already theirs and attacking opponents to claim new states. The game currently has 1,500 players from schools around the country.

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