Microsoft

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.

Another reason why fiscal conservatism doesn't work.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, supreme prophet of digital connectivity, revealed a strange tent-like object. It was designed to change the world and to cost $100. It was a solar-powered laptop. Millions would be distributed to children in the developing world, bringing them connection, education, enlightenment and freedom of information.

And then some of them tried to kill it.

Microsoft, acting in their logical self-interest, felt threatened by the prospect of a drastically cheaper laptop in the hands of millions of children, seriously undercutting their currently dominant product. As Bryan Appleyard points out in his Times Online piece, "Computers only cost as much as they do because the makers of the software – primarily Microsoft – go to enormous lengths to make their products necessary and expensive." Microsoft was also concerned because the new laptops would not use the Windows operating system but instead the free OS, Sugar.

Intel was upset because Negroponte's computer, the XO, uses an AMD chip, AMD being the second largest chip-maker in the world after Intel. This could cost Intel their status as the number one computer chip producer in the world, costing them their "market leadership."

So the two companies both set out to kill the XO. Intel created a cheap laptop called the Classmate and along with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, set about trashing the XO in the press.

Obviously it is in Microsoft and Intel's best interests to destroy the XO, this computer that could bring tons of new information, education and communication technologies to communities that are in dire need of it. The XO, and projects like it, should be aided by the US Government, they should be well funded and protected from these corporate madmen.

It would be a great thing for the world to further connect people and strengthen our global community, introducing a new generation to the intellectual, cultural and economic marketplace of the future. Getting all the information and ideas that one can find on the internet out to the developing world is important as a cure for extremism and push for democratic thinking.

Appleyard comes to an interesting and accurate conclusion:

Computers are like drugs, literally. If the drug companies wanted to do the most good in the world, they would divert all investment from the illnesses of the rich – cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes – to the much more catastrophic ailments of the poor, primarily malaria, but also Aids. But they don’t; they sit comfortably on their high-margin drugs. Equally, if the technocrats really believed in the human value of universal connectivity – and all of them say they do – they would find ways of wiring southeast Asia and Africa. But they don’t; they sit comfortably on their high-margin laptops.

For all these reasons, we can see the that the best interests of a few corporations can often disregard or even seriously oppose the health and livelihood of individuals, the economic success of a large part of a world, and the moral welfare of our Nation.

Shai Sachs at Planting Liberally has another post about how to fund progressive organizing and ease the reliance on big donors. Shai's idea - to fund an incubator that would promote for-profit/non-profit partnerships - is pretty ambitious, and I think there'd need to be some serious cost/benefit analysis to see if his model would be more efficient/sustainable than the current big-donor model.

My ideas in this area tend to be smaller in scale, like how to build revenue into projects. At MFA we tried selling merchandise, and had a very successful partnership with MoveOn, Barsuk Records and McSweeneys). I've also talked about even smaller scale stuff like College Democrat chapters, which have budgets in the thousands of dollars, hooking up with Amazon to bolster their budget.

Yesterday I read about a new project by Microsoft to promote their new instant messenger service. Called "IM (making a difference)," Microsoft has created partnerships with a number of nonprofit organizations including Sierra Club, The Human Society and the Red Cross. When you download Microsofts new IM client, you can choose one of these charities. Every time you IM your friends, Microsoft donates some of their ad revenue to the charity you selected.

I was thinking that something along these lines would be perfect for youth organizations to pursue in partnership with Working Assets. If you don't know, Working Assets is a dual for-profit/nonprofit organization that is in the credit card, wireless, and phone biz. Part of their profits go to supporting progressive causes, and since its creation in 1985 they have donated over $50 million to help sustain progressive organizations.

I have no idea if and how such a partnership could work (or if WA is even interested in the IM/chat business), but I saw that Microsoft program and it got the wheels spinning a little.