Kitsch/Posh

Barack has so much cash to burn that his campaign is spending it on video games (even though in the last debate Obama said that parents need to “put away the video games”). [CNN]  Up until about November 3, the Obama campaign is making use of in-game advertising in some EA games to convince people to vote for the Democratic candidate. [MSNBC]  I guess ACORN wasn’t working out after all.

Yet while Obama may be the first candidate to use in-game advertising, he isn’t the first politician to use video games to present his message.  Last year former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich held a forum in the online video game Second Life, and it was a total success.  Not really.  [Game Politics]  Earlier this year supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul spammed the online community virulently, eventually leading a rally in World of Warcraft. [YouTube]  And weren’t the 1993 Congressional hearings on Mortal Kombat just a ploy to boost the image of Joe Lieberman?  Ok, maybe that’s stretching it a bit.

Players tend to view in-game advertising as a double-edged sword.  If one is cynical, then this is just another scheme to get more money into the pockets of greedy executives, at little to no benefit to the consumer.  But the case can be made that as games become more expensive (and expansive–MMORPGs) gaming studios need to pull in more money regularly to make a decent profit and remain competitive.  Even if the cynical viewpoint holds water, why does it necessarily  matter?    The only compelling argument I’ve heard is that ads in a game can take one out of the mood.  I would agree with this if, say, I could hire the Sneak King in Fight Night as my cornerman–oh wait. [YES, HE IS IN FIGHT NIGHT]  On the other hand, seeing an ad for Tropic Thunder in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was in a small way part of the experience, and if anything contributed to the mood.  So the only time ads absolutely don’t work is when they are antithetical to the game one is playing.  At least the Obama ads don’t fit into this category.

But what if they did?

1) Here is Kitsch/Posh’s Obama ad in Battlefield 2142:

2) And because we just had to do it, Counter-Strike:

Actually, never mind.  The Sneak King was awesome.

P.S.: The MSNBC article has a factual error.  Dynamic in-game advertising has existed longer than eighteen months.  I remember seeing a billboard ad for The Longest Yard in the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory co-op mode and reading about in-game ads for years. [GameSpot]  Static advertising has existed for decades since every gaming company basically promotes itself–as in those classic sports games where the EA logo would flash constantly.  There have also been entire games based around third-party products. [Angry Video Game Nerd, NSFW]