Immersion

Okay, so kids are into videogames. Let’s make it look dark and scary. Gray tinged background. Creepy light on faces. Find the most effed up kids you can find. Scare people and parents. Maybe that’s reading too much into it. Maybe it’s someone who just wanted to make a video of the stupidest looking kids playing games. They searched long and hard for these children. Cost them 3 nickels too!

That zombie girl was listening to some bad Russian rap. I have no idea what game she could possibly be playing. Maybe she’s watching TV? I’m convinced some kids are watching TV.

I’m obviously not impressed by the video. Does it do anything for anyone else?

Obama Launches a Video Game Campaign

Excerpt from the article:

Obama Ad Campaign Targets Video Games

Following in the footsteps of leading-edge advertisers like Red Bull, the Obama campaign has diversified their ad blitz to include not only print and television spots, but also ads in social networking sites and video games.

The campaign has reportedly purchased ad space in several Internet-enabled video games running on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 platform. The titles include popular games like Burnout Paradise and Madden NFL ’09, and the ads will be restricted to users connecting from battleground states like Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. The ads in the game burnout appear as billboards that say “Early voting has begun / VoteForChange.com.”

This is the latest tech-savvy step for a campaign that has shown unprecedented mastery of social networking, text messaging and targeted emailing to spread information about its candidate. This isn’t the Obama campaign’s first foray into non-traditional advertising, however; the candidate also sponsors spots on popular sites like Hulu.com, a streaming television site, as well as Google’s YouTube. If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve probably seen his ads there, too.

Whether or not this is a wise investment of last-minute capital — or if users even pay much attention to in-game ads — remains to be seen, but if Obama wins in November, it’s likely that other candidates will attempt to duplicate his strategy to enfranchise the elusive 18-34 age group.

You don’t need to click the link because this the entire thing, the rest of the link talks about dorky things that probably only I would care about such as Windows OS and Adobe Suites.

I also don’t know how effective in-game political ads would be but gosh darnit, that’s a very innovative strategy. His campaign is doing some interesting things. Regardless of what I feel about Obama, I have got to give him praise for awakening the 18-30 something demographic politically. We have been both ignored politically, and politically apathetic, and again the two feed into one another.

Is Voting for Young People? is a short, but concise book on the issues around youth voting. In a very short summary what is created is a rather vicious circle of a lack of participation and a lack of attention. Young people have a crappy voting record, so politicians hardly tailor to them because there is little benefit to them. At the same time, young people feel that they are not being represented politically, and in their resentment they become even more politically distant. The more distant they become, the less politicians pay attention to them. So what Obama has done is a national service, but also a great re-energizer to democracy. More representation to a part of the voting block that has been silent for many decades. Whether or not he wins, he has started (as my old History teacher would say) a fire under our asses to get us to act. To become political once again. To become interested and aware of politics. To participate. That’s pretty awesome. So while I supported Hillary, I do respect Obama for what he did.

The apathy of my peers is a great concern for me. While the statistical trend is that people become more political and more civically-engaged with age, I’m worried that the passitivity and indifference that most youth feel will carry on as they grow older.

As for bringing politics to video gamers, I think that’s awesome. Sure, I can see this being used for darker (and more annoying) purposes (you have to watch an ad before you can enjoy the glory of whatever game you’re playing, but also you will be opened up to marketing and ad-bombings). What I think is awesome is the fact that gamers are being acknowleged by political leaders. I’m rather sensitive about gaming (good god my obsession with WarCraft), and I think gamers, as a group, are often poorly described. But that’s a blog posdt for a different day.

Also…because I cannot resist..a game! It’s sort of like Risk. I had fun. How well did you do?