Obama takes his campaign to Burnout Paradise

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/10/14/obama-takes-his-campaign-to-burnout-paradise

If you're in the United States, you're likely getting tired of hearing and seeing politics everywhere you go. It's also possible you're taking part in conversations that begin civilly and end with screaming and dark curses about how one candidate may crash the country into the hard wall of oblivion. Well guess what? You can't escape it, and it's now in your gaming. Obama has taken his campaign into the world of Burnout Paradise.

The gamer who took these pictures told his story to GamePolitics. "We'd been buzzing around the city in various vehicles at high speed for about half an hour before I happened to crash right in front of one of the billboards (Burnout's in-game camera induces vertigo if you try to manipulate it, so you normally have to get a car airborne before you can actually read any of the signs close up)," he wrote. "It was a genuine 'WTF?' moment."

"Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates," Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, told GigaOM. "Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams."

As more and more people seek solace and quiet contemplation in their end of the day gaming, it's only natural that the political issues of the day will chase them, even there. I can understand why Obama has placed the advertising in this game, and in some ways I'm even darkly amused by it, but I do have to mourn the death of one of the last places that exist without one side or the other leering at me, expectantly.