OBAMA IN XBOXLAND

It’s just another day for you and me and hope and change in Burnout Paradise—but who invited Obama into that fantasy?

By Randy Harward

Perhaps by now you’ve seen GigaOm.com’s report that the Barack Obama campaign purchased in-game advertising on the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise (Electronic Arts). The billboard says, “Early Voting Has Begun” which, as GigaOm points out, is possibly “his subtle way of trying to get [gamers] off the couch.”

Hey, with Somebody’s efforts to disenfranchise voters and flat-out steal elections, and the Rovian motivation of fearful bigoted evangelical voters, it’s worth a shot. Gamers are an increasingly substantial portion of the population. And to speak generally—and risk sounding like Bill O’Reilly when he called The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s viewers “stoned slackers”—many of them probably prefer their banana chair or beanbag time to more significant pursuits and concerns, like presidential elections.

Gamers aren’t all single-minded burnouts. Many have jobs and families, to say nothing of minds and opinions. It’s possible, though, that their leisure activities leave little time for, or passively take priority over, researching candidates and issues. Gamers probably don’t debate their opponents while during a marathon online World of Warcraft session, or engage the drummer in political tête-à-tête while Guided by Joyces holds forth on the Rock Band virtual stage. And chances are very few of them tune into CNN or MSNBC after powering down their systems. So why not reach out to them in their world?

That is, if we/they can stomach more product placement and ubiquitous-verging-on-ridiculous advertising. It’s bad enough to have in-show advertisements on The Office or in films. Like moviegoers and boob-tubers, gamers probably bristle at real-world advertisements in the fantasy worlds that function as an escape from their day-to-day. Especially when those ads don’t necessarily reflect their views or tastes—hell, even when they do.

I support Obama, but I’d nonetheless be taken aback by a campaign ad in a game I for which I shelled out forty to sixty bucks. Sorry, Mr. Almost Maybe President—I just don’t want to be pitched when I’m pretending to be a street racer instead of keyboard monkey. I want to see fire, explosions, gore and girls—and some far-out recreations of exotic locales both extant and extraterrestrial. I want, for the hour or two I can devote to my hobby, to be unmolested by advertising, whether it’s from you, McCain or McDonald’s. And I for damn sure don’t want to see my fictional band on the cover of Paste when I pass a level on Guitar Hero III. Talkin’ to you, Neversoft. That rag wouldn’t know a rippin’ solo if Hendrix pissed one down on them from the Coca-Cola skybox in Jet Blue Heaven.