It's In The Game for Obama

One of the most impossible to reach swing voters include gamers. Amazing, considering how close the information needed to make a decision is to their fingertips. That aside, Barak Obama has fired the first shot in getting the attention of these sedentary couch surfers: He's bought ad-space in game.

Damned clever, I say. Inevitable, to boot. Will McCain fire the next shot and put ads for him throughout the bombed-out backgrounds of Gears of War 2?

from The Sydney Morning Herald:

Nine video games from Electronic Arts, ranging from the extremely popular Madden 09 football game to the street racing Burnout: Paradise, feature in-game ads from the Obama campaign. The ads - they appear on billboards and other signage - remind players that early voting has begun and plug a campaign website.

The idea of embedding advertising temporarily inside a video game is relatively new, having only begun about 18 months ago, and Obama is the first presidential candidate to buy space, company officials said.