Game changer?

There has been much said on game-centric sites about an “Obama for President” billboard advertisement placed in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise; it is a paid official campaign advertisement.  GamePolitics(.com) posts are representative early discussion on this topic.  Frankly, however, I am wondering what the fuss is about.

It is hard not to imagine the attraction of political advertising in game worlds. When a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that "97% of American teens ages 12-17 play some kind of video game" and that "99% of boys say they are gamers and 94% of girls report that they play games", one view is therefore, that the hand-writing is on the wall.  Yet, I can imagine a number of risks here for gamer-to-be-associated candidates, e.g. inadvertently becoming associated with a game with unexpected (off-message) content.

The other pitfall, I think, is simply figuring out the audience of a game.  This will likely become more important as the "gamer" umbrella fragments into narrower constituencies.  Illustrating some of the complexity involved, the same study reports "(a) typical teen plays at least five different categories of games and 40% of them play eight or more different game types."   Missteps by other U.S. presidential candidates earlier in the year in targeting one game constituency or another is also indicative - it is hard to figure out who plays/sympathizes with what (until it is too late).

If this is the future, is there more to this story than one of an ongoing transition into a complicated new media market; or is there some sort of "game-changer" quality to this story that I am missing?

Comments

[DM]

1.

I think the irony is that Obama's said, on numerous occasions, that parents should "turn off the TV and put away the videogames" to better connect with their kids (generally the comment's in relation to education). But then, I guess the <17 gamer crowd doesn't vote, eh?

[Christian]

2.

This prompts me to ask a question who anyone who is interested. I am currently doing my Master Thesis on the following subject: "Status quo and future of successful business models in game extern
markets - a qualitative study on electronic sports". I ask my tutor what he meant by "game extern markets" and he said they are "everything that involves the game indirectly". Now this has confused me a lot, and im not sure I understand what he means. Can anyone tell me what they understand of "game extern(al) markets? I appreciate the help.

[dmx]

3.

Your doing a masters thesis on a topic you don/t even know what the name of it means?

Good lord! How did you end up in that tangle?

I mean, thats masters, thats a couple of notches below Doc, and that means your assumed to have boffin class knowledge on the topic.

Granted games and culture (and economics) are a pretty new topic, but still.

Hmm.

[Christian Timm]

4.

The theme was changed. It was supposed to be In-Game Advertising and its influences on Electronics Sports (like the World Cyber Games). But my tutor changed it to what I have described above. Now, I searched everywhere, but I simply cannot understand what GAME EXTERN MARKETS are. If you think I am stupid or something else, please keep it with you. I just wanted an EXAMPLE of such a market. There are other complications, but it doesnt matter, again, if someone can give me an example, I would appreciate the help.

[cliff]

5.

My biggest problem with this is the same as it is with DVDs that have massive blocks of commercials at the front. If I'm paying full price for a something, then I expect it be commercial free. Commercials are intended to reduce the cost of something - Network television is free because of commercials. HBO is not because it doesn't have commercials.

Putting commercials in my games kind of annoys me. At least they haven't started to try to put them in places where they don't go yet - billboards in a racing game are at least appropriate. Just wait until they try to figure out how to get ads into some fantasy RPG, though.

[Mark Peters]

6.

More on game-changer as a cliche: http://www.good.is/?p=12799

The word that's hurting my brain...

[greglas]

7.

Christian -- Shouldn't you be asking your tutor what this term means if he proposed the change in the language of the title of your thesis?

In the sports context, an example of an "external" market might be a market for the use of sports team logos in advertising and promotion, as opposed to the "direct" market of selling broadcasts and tickets to the public.

But the only one who really know what that term means for your situation is the person who told you that you have to use it!

[Traceur]

8.

i don't see how a game is any less of a worthy advertisement sponsorship billboard, or why should game publishers filter political ads as apposed to any other adds.

do you find a billboard company to be associated with a specific politician if it posts his campaign posts? do you find a TV network to be such (fox jokes aside)? no, their just giving the room for whoever pays for the space - it's just advertisement, and not part of the content.

let's take the fox news example and apply it to game design:

if for example a GTA-like MMO had the player character vote and that vote determined the in-game elections - and if you voted for obama you would end up having terrorist attacks in the city, or the game took place in Iraq and the only way to get reinforcement was if mccain wins, then the game would be politically biased.
the same goes the other way around: if your playing a simcity like game, and unless obama wins poverty & pollution are going to take over your city, then the game has a clear political bias.

so the game becomes political when it touches content, because otherwise, we simply do not view the ad as part of the game package - it doesn't touch on any interactive aspect and we do not experience it.

[Artheos]

9.

Actually, the problem is that money is driving it.

Political advertising should come from the pot identified by taxpayers and should be shared among all individuals who make the poll. That means we should have been seeing roughly equivalent advertising from McCain, Obama, Nader, and so forth, not just the 2 parties, or mostly Obama in this one.