For a few weeks now, Barrack Obama's campaign ads have appeared in Xbox 360 versions of Burnout Paradise, Madden 09, NASCAR 09 and 15 other games (mostly sports related). These ads began on October 6 and will conclude on the eve of the National Election. According to GameSpot, they have gotten information from the Federal Election Commission that the Illinois senator has spent $44,465.78 for these in game ads.

What are your thoughts of real-life politics in video games?

Revolting as they are everywhere else.

Only thing worse than a lawyer is a politician.

Got a riddle what do you call a lawyer that's gone bad?.....a senator.

This is very worrisome. For years, video game companies have staved off government regulation attempts. But political advertising in games that feature update-able content could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back when it comes to regulating video game content in America.

Next thing you know there going to interupt in the middle of playing a video game for a presidential press confrence. I worry about this, I think people should have the option to have this put into their game, not forced to. I'm actually shocked somebody hasn't sued someone over this yet. I'm not sure what for, but the way America is now, I'm pretty sure there is something they can sue about.

Obama by Januari 2009, will be the 44th President of the United States.

Egad, times are a changing. Let's just hope he doesn't get assasinated like the rest of other presidents that voted for "change."

How progressive were James A. Garfield and William McKinley? You don't have to vote for change to piss somebody off.

"If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal"

Can't think of those you may be referring to...

You know, one of the wonderful side-effects to playing games is that I get to escape from politics a little bit, come election time. Sure, in on-line games some people will be talking about it, but aside from on-line, I get a nice break away from reality. Political ads seem to change this, and I don't think I like that.

It's certainly understandable if people are tired of seeing, say, Coca Cola ads and other sad reminders of the mindless consumer society we live in, but I just fail to see how political ads could be worse and/or more worrying. Whatever we think of individual politicians or ideologies, political ads at least have the obvious benefit of addressing genuinely important matters of public concern.

Then again, I can think of quite a few particularly nasty and disgraceful McCain ads from this years presidential election campaign that I probably would have preferred not to see on the billboards in my driving games...

Coca Cola ads and other sad reminders of the mindless consumer society

I like Cola. Yummy. ;-)

Well, its an interesting move I guess. Without revealing my political background, however, I question how effective this will be. Personally, if an ad popped up from a pol I didn't agree with (or maybe even one I did), I would find it very distracting.

That said, I think there might be some legs to the whole "government intrusion" concern everyone has, if it were to progress to a logical extreme. Whether it will or not, I can't say. This is a new event in the industry and it's best to keep a clear eye on that front for now.

But even if it doesn't, I would be more concerned with the quality of multiplayer games in the vaguely foreseeable future. Consider this: advertisers pay a goodly of money to have their kit displayed on products, usually, and they'll pay more (political or otherwise) for online gaming as it becomes more and more popular. And I can see developers skimping on features in a game in order to get a glorified piece of online ad-ware out the door faster, in the not-too-distant future. The fact that political candidates are now intruding on gaming through advertising shows how close that may be to becoming a reality.

Expect more of this next election, I think.