14 DAY TRIAL // In-game ads are a pretty interesting thing. It sure is weird to see the ads you would find on the street or on billboards across the city in your game while you race or shoot another character. It certainly is one of the biggest less exploited areas of advertising, which is why big companies like Activision sign contracts to display ads in their games, or why big industry companies like Google enter this market. But the end results are sometimes a bit funny.
GamePolitics reports that a gamer, while playing the racing title Burnout: Paradise, saw a billboard advertising for the United States Presidential Candidate Barrack Obama. The gamer in question, who goes by the nickname Dragunov765, posted pictures of this billboard on his blog and expressed his opinion about them. Don't go thinking that he's just a kid who knows how to Photoshop an image, because he definitely has credibility and the pictures look real enough.
"Here's the photos I took while playing Burnout: Paradise on the Xbox 360. I don't know how often they rotate the in-game advertising, but I imagine they are still up. I gotta give Obama credit for covering all the bases. I also think this is an interesting endorsement for adults as gamers (or maybe he's planting the seeds for a re-election bid in 4 years)." he wrote on his blog.
The billboard, which expresses the early voting initiatives, references Obama's campaign site and states that it was paid for by "Obama for America." While it does seem interesting he would approach such a delicate market, the presidential candidate has always been close with the younger voting audience and with such attempts he can only get an even bigger boost in popularity.
Electronic Arts, the publisher of this game and the company that holds the advertisement rights, has yet to offer an official statement about this particular ad.