Politics and Video Games

In August Rock the Vote partnered with Microsoft to register voters through Xbox Live. Earlier this month the Obama campaign bought in-game ads in a number of Xbox 360 games. The topic of video games and politics is very hot right now.

There are a lot of conflicting opinions about the efficacy of video game advertising. In the future they may or may not prove to be effective. This year it doesn't matter if they are effective or not, it's still a very smart move.

Campaigns love earned media. There is nothing better than seeing your candidate or cause widely covered in the press without paying the media to do it, as long as it's positive, that is. Rock the Vote and the Obama campaign broke new ground with their respective video game campaigns, and the media coverage alone makes it worth it.

Rock the Vote's effort was covered in Marketwatch, Deseret News, CNET, and many others, but that's not the best value. The real benefit was the coverage of the partnership by video game blogs that are read by people who may not be getting the message from other sources: Team Xbox, PC World, Joystiq, 1up.com, Kotaku, and a ton of other popular video game sites.

The Rock the Vote partnership was able to double the media coverage by holding an unofficial straw poll of Xbox 360 users, the results becoming a new story.

There are even video game PSAs:

The voter registration functionality of the Rock the Vote partnership is effective on its own, but the additional media coverage and blog saturation is icing.

Obama's ads are currently showing up in Burnout Paradise, NBA Live 09, and Madden 09.

Whether or not such in-game ads will continue to be effective in the future remains to be seen, but this year they definitely hit the spot. How many times have you seen a tutorial showing you how to view an advertisement? This is such a new thing that people are going out of their way to find the ads.

Obama's in-game ads were big enough news for SNL's Weekend Update to bring it up:

"Barack Obama has begun running ads within video games. Obama ads can be seen in video games such as `Madden NFL '09' and `Burnout.' Not to be outdone, John McCain has begun putting ads inside many MRI machines." — Seth Meyers, "Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday."

Within the hardcore gamer community there are some mixed feelings about the ads, a few gamers hate them, but those tend to be the Ron Paulites so there's not much you can do there.

The earned media and online buzz generated by the Obama ads is great, but I don't think future campaigns are going to get nearly as much value out of them. First of all, if you need a tutorial to find the ad it isn't very effective. The professional sports games are more suited to in-game advertising, but once the luster has worn off of the concept most ads will probably become white noise.

When it comes to tapping into the gaming community, I see a lot more potential down Rock the Vote's route than I do with in-game ads. I'd really like to see some research done on the topic. Either way, both RTV and the Obama campaign made a great move this year.

What are your thoughts on the integration of politics with video games? How do you feel about in-game advertising? Share your thoughts in the comments.