Second Life users can now follow what Twitter users are saying about the presidential tickets.

Steve Nelson of SL's Capitol Hill area writes:

I've installed a new display at Capitol Hill in Second Life that streams Twitter tweets about candidates.  The tweets float above columns, and are refreshed every minute with a search for Obama, Biden, McCain or Palin. You can also talk to the display to get the latest tweets about an individual candidate. Touch a column, and you get the original post on Twitter that you can use to follow links, etc...

 

As for me, joining the discussion in Second Life, with an eye on the Twitter election channel, and another eye on my TV, makes my head explode.
 

Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two Interactive and John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, might not be able to get together on a merger, but they seem to agree on at least one thing: Barack Obama.

Both game biz execs have contributed to Obama's presidential campaign.

In fact, in research conducted by GamePolitics of publicly available records, A-list video game industry types seem to be leaning in the Democratic direction. Of 16 donors we found, only three had given to Republican candidates. Meanwhile, 13 had donated to Democrats (although only 9 of these gave to Obama).

While our survey can't in any way be considered scientific, we looked at several dozen other prominent industry figures, but did not find any presidential campaign contributions that met our guidelines. The ground rules in use dictated that we would only consider 2007-2008 presidential contributions. In some cases, however, donors gave substantial amounts to congressional races or non-candidate-specific political action committees. Those aren't listed here.

Among the biggest names we found were Rockstar's Sam Houser (Obama), Spore designer Will Wright (McCain) and Ultima designer (and space traveler) Richard Garriott (Hillary Clinton). Here's the list:

Republican contributors:

• Will Wright: (Spore, The Sims) $3,000 to McCain; previously donated $2,350 to Giuliani
• Bobby Kotick (Activision CEO) $2,300 to McCain; previously donated $2,100 to Romney
• Curt Schilling (38 Studios) $2,300 to McCain.

Democratic contributors:

• Strauss Zelnick (Chairman, Take-Two) $2,000 to Obama; had previously donated to $2,500 to Edwards, $1,000 each to Biden & Richardson
• Ben Feder (CEO, Take-Two) contributed $1,000 to Biden in 2007
• Sam Houser (Rockstar) $4,600 to Obama
• Patricia Vance (president, ESRB) $2,000 to Obama
• John Riccitiello (CEO, EA) $4,600 to Obama
• John Smedley (Sony Online Entertainment) $2,300 to Obama
• Richard Garriott aka "Lord British" (Ultima series, NC Soft) $2,300 to Hillary Clinton
• Alex Rigopulos (CEO, Harmonix) $32,900 to Obama
• Kathy Vrabeck (president, EA Casual) $2,300 to Obama
• George Lucas (LucasFilm) $33,100 to Obama
• Doug Lowenstein (former ESA head) $2,300 to Hillary Clinton
• Kenneth Doroshow (new ESA general counsel) $2,500 to Obama
• Gabe Newell (pres., Valve) $2,300 to Dodd

GP: We will update the list as additional donors are located.

UPDATE: Adding links for each donor. Just click on the name for details. Also, removed a couple of mistaken entries on the Democratic side. Specifically, we had initially listed a John Carmack, but further review indicated that it was not the game desgner.

Pwn Or Die has posted this short but funny parody of the classic AYB... with a presidential campaign twist.

Hopefully, you found time to watch Friday's presidential debate between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Perhaps you even viewed it from within Second Life.

Over at The Click Heard Round the World Rik Panganiban checked out the SL presence of both camps during the debate:

The McCain viewing party was held in a beachside setting at the "Straight Talk Cafe" build... It was a festive event, with avatars dancing, sipping beverages, and lounging on beach chairs as they watched the debate from their TVs and laptops at home.  About 25 avatars were in attendance...

 

The Obama camp's debate watching party took place at "Obama/Biden Lounge at Hope Beach...  About 30-some avatars were in attendance. Their impressions were nearly opposite those of the McCain camp...

 

Obviously this was a very small subset of both candidates' supporters.  What I observed was a lot of preaching to the choir and one-sided views of their candidates.  There was no real dialogue across the aisle, nor was there intended to be... I think it's a useful reminder that no matter the political figure, one person's angel is another person's demon.

Over at BlipTV we found this:

"Swift Kick Moms for Truth" is a one-minute “machinima” video featuring virtual versions of Obama’s grandma and McCain’s mother scolding the candidates for their deceptive ads. Lead-in by virtual Tom Brokaw.

 

Created in the Second Life virtual world by Machinima by Silver and Goldie, with voice artist Mark Winston.

The title, of course, harkens back to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group, which trashed John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. The term "swiftboating" has since become part of the language, denoting a smear campaign.

This video, however, is both non-partisan and just for fun.

Over at The Click Heard Round the World, Second Life devotee Rik Panganiban wonders why Democrats seem to far outnumber Republicans in SL's online world.

Panganiban, who goes by Rik Riel in-game, is a self-identified Obama supporter and notes that the Democratic presidential candidate topped a recent SL poll by a 2:1 margin over Republican John McCain.

Panganiban also notes that McCain's SL presence, "Straight Talk Cafe" is usually deserted and seems to be malfunctioning. He writes:

Looking at the Second Life resident-organized groups, there does appear to be a larger support base for Obama, with 1,300 residents in the "Obama for President" group, compared to only 300-some residents in the largest McCain for President group...

 

Given the fact that Obama and McCain have been in a virtual deadheat in the real world polls, what is the deal with Second Life?  Are there more progressive, liberal folks flocking to the virtual world?  Is it the age group that tends to dominate SL, the late-20s / mid-30s demographic? 

 

I found this all kind of sad.  Although I'm an Obama supporter, I would love to talk with McCain boosters about his policies, particularly his positions on foreign policy and the United Nations. Does McCain support closing Gitmo?  Would he fully fund efforts to stop the scourge of AIDS in Africa?  I really want to know, and I would want to know if his supporters care about these things.

Although neither the McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden tickets have especially significant track records in regard to video game issues, one of them will win in November and thus be in a position to influence the course of the public debate over games.

With that in mind, it's clear that some bloggers can't resist sending a bit of parody the candidates' way.

Kotaku yesterday ran What Can Games Teach Us About the Election?, recommending that the would-be presidents study titles like WoW (leadership), Missile Command (foreign policy) and Trauma Center: Under the Knike (heath care). Here's a sample:

Far from condemning video gaming, McCain and Obama would do well to embrace gaming culture in the hope that some of our collective wisdom will rub off...

 

Worried that you may not have traveled extensively enough, or had enough experience on the world stage?

 

...Chillax, just grab a PC and binge on Civilization... A few Civ campaigns should be enough for a basic grounding in the subtle nuances of international relations. The tech progress tree might also give a greater understanding of science although beware — if the candidates heed the game's advice too closely, Wall Street may reel from the unexpected national investment in Pottery and Burial Rituals.

 

A Civ player quickly learns the importance of a stable economy to a war effort. It's no good throwing phalanx after phalanx at a conquered land if your advisors are telling you to build more granaries, after all. Better to focus on diplomacy, and maybe build a colossus or two to keep the plebes happy back home.

Meanwhile, Daily Game has a two-parter with a slightly different twist on the subject. If Barack Obama and Joe Biden Were Video Games and If John McCain and Sarah Palin Were Video Games strains the metaphor a bit to relate the candidates to a half-dozen or so games.
 

A press release touting Xbox Live's partnership with Rock the Vote notes that Barack Obama has a 12% edge over John McCain among participants in an XBL poll. 100,000 users took part, which, according to the press release, makes the XBL sample larger than Gallup, NBC and CNN combined. Of course, as Giant Bomb notes:

...they aren't pretending that it's actual science, because there are so many holes in this poll that it's impossible to take it as anything other than sort-of interesting. For example, as someone who has more than one Xbox Live gold account, I probably could have voted twice...

Still, it is a fascinating use of what started out a few years back as a space designed strictly for online gaming.

As far as the results, Obama's big lead is not especially surprising, given that XBL users likely skew significantly younger than the population as a whole. Here are the numbers:

• Obama \ Biden:                  43%
• McCain \ Palin:                    31%
• Undecided:                         13%
• Other:                                13%

Of more value than the polling is the impressive level of political engagement engendered by the XBL / Rock the Vote partnership. As the press release points out:
 

In its first two weeks of the program, more than 55,000 voter registration forms were downloaded through Xbox LIVE and xbox.com. Additionally, videos from the recent Democratic and Republican conventions were downloaded nearly 25,000 times.

 

To-date, the Xbox LIVE community has downloaded more than 350,000 pieces of program-specific content, ranging from candidate gamerpics to videos and Rock the Vote logos. That’s nearly five times the amount of people present at Barack Obama’s acceptance speech during the Democratic Convention in Denver.
 

Over at Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost points us to Debate Night: Obama's Unofficial Game:

Gameplay is derived from Zuma-type games; the player chooses a key issue (represented iconographically) and then uses a match-and-move gesture to swap their positions. Match three or more and they disappear, the equivalent of volleying successfully in the debate.

 

The game both acts as a quality piece of interactive media in support of the campaign and a subtle critique of the process itself, since the issues themselves matter less in the campaign than the way they are repositioned.

Debate Night was designed by Gonzalo Frasca, who collaborated on the Dean for Iowa game during the 2004 Democratic primaries.

Thanks to: GP correspondent Andrew Eisen for the heads-up on Debate Night.

A new ad from the Obama campaign employs a virtual roulette interface in an effort to paint John McCain as a politics-as-usual, Beltway insider...

A new video trailer which shows off the cooperative mode in the upcoming Saints Row 2 features likenesses of presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama engaging in full-on gameplay.

And in Saints Row, of course, that means full-on violent gameplay...

Can online games serve as a vehicle for campaign financing?

We may find out, given that an upcoming Second Life event is designed to raise money for the Obama campaign. As detailed by Midcourt, the virtual fundraiser will take place next Sunday from 4-7pm Pacific time. A DJ will be playing music and supporters can leave money in donation boxes.

Planners of the Obama event hope to raise 100,000 Lindens, SL's in-game currency. That would be about $380 at current exchange rates. That's not exactly the kind of money that will push a candidate over the top, so the event is probably more significant as an experiment in virtual political fundraising.

In an article titled, Who Is The Gamer's Candidate?, Edge Online has recapped the positions of both parties' presidential tickets as they relate to video games.

It's good to know that none of the four candidates have ever gotten behind a video game ban, although Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin gave consideration in the past to censoring books. Of the four, Barack Obama has said and done the most in regard to games.

While the EO piece offers no new information, it is a worthwhile summary.

A San Francisco-based game designer is among a subset of Hillary Clinton supporters who can't seem to get their minds around the notion that Barack Obama is the presidential choice of the Democratic Party.

As reported by Newsday, Toni Alves was among several hundred Hillary backers who marched through the streets of Denver on Monday shouting, "Honest Roll Call!" and "Yes We Can!"

Alves, whose design credits include Heroes of Might & Magic V , told Newsday that she has voted as a Democrat for 40 years and traveled to Denver on behalf of her local chapter of Party Unity My Ass (PUMA). She claims that she will vote for Republican John McCain should Obama secure the nomination.

Kotaku reports that Microsoft and the Xbox 360 are waving the video game flag at this week's Democratic National Convention.

Denver-based Kotaku EIC Brian Crecente popped over to the DNC and discovered that Microsoft lobbyists had set up a booth featuring 360s running MLB2K8 during Tuesday's events at Coors Field. Exec Fred Humphries told Crecente:

Where better to talk about families and games then in the living room. We're here to highlight the family settings for the Xbox 360 and talk about ratings. Education is so important when it comes to the Xbox. We are here to tell people about Play Smart, Play Safe... We fully support parents talking to kids.

MS will be making a similar appearance at the upcoming Republican National Convention. As GamePolitics reported last week, Microsoft is partnering with Rock the Vote to help drive voter registration through Xbox Live.

CNet's Declan McCullough reports that Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) has an anti-consumer track record when it comes to technology.

In the past the Democratic VP nominee-apparent has stood with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on copyright issues.

From the Cnet report:

[Biden] has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders... ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, [his] anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP [encryption]...

 

Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs...

 

A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks." Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits...

 

All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)

McCullough reports that Biden has "steadfastly refused" to answer Cnet's questions on his tech voting record.

GP: It's ironic that Biden has chosen to portray himself as an intellectual property rights champion. He has twice been outed for plagiarizing.

A controversial new book fingers video games, television, and digital communications as culprits in the author's indictment of modern youth culture.

The book is The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein. Canada.com has a lengthy interview with the author:

Something insidious is happening inside their heads. Young Americans today are no more learned or skilful than their predecessors, no more knowledgeable, fluent, up-to-date, or inquisitive, except in the materials of youth culture.

What then, Canada.com asks, does Bauerlein make of the widespread involvement of young people in the Barack Obama campaign?

...if it turns out that we have 75 per cent of young people voting in this election, then I will be happy to say that my comments about civic apathy were wrong. But if inspiration proves to be their only motive and their participation falls in later elections when an Obama is absent, then my initial suspicion will be correct. We need a diligent citizenry, and not merely a momentarily inspired one.

The book's description on Amazon says, in part:

The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children... we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.

That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map...
 

The campaign of Republican presidential contender John McCain has taken an oddly-worded, RPG-themed shot at supporters of Barack Obama who questioned a story the former P.O.W. told during a weekend forum at high-profile pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church.

From the CNN account:

During a presidential forum at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church on Saturday, McCain told a story of a guard who wordlessly drew a cross in the dirt one Christmas, describing it as a moment that gave him strength.

 

Critics in the blogosphere said that McCain, who was released in 1973, had not mentioned the incident until shortly before his 2000 presidential bid... They also pointed to similarities between McCain’s account and a similar story in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, his account of life in the Soviet labor camp system.

 

McCain aide Michael Goldfarb, in a message posted on the campaign’s Web site Monday [wrote] “It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others...”

At one time, Second Life was viewed as having great potential for promoting political campaigns.

However, the Houston Chronicle points out that in the current presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain have largely ignored the SL metaverse:

Campaigns haven't figured out how to reconcile the all-important image and fundraising with a world in which a Gothic nymph can sit in on a congressional hearing - or a Teddy bear might try to donate to a political campaign.

 

So for now, the Second Life campaign headquarters of Barack Obama and John McCain are pristine, glistening and completely vacant most of the time...

 

Fundraising is still not an option in Second Life, as there is no way to monitor where the donations are coming from, and the majority of players are from outside the U.S.

Julie Germany of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet told the Chronicle:

It's been written about in fiction and cyberpunk, this idea that these online worlds could actually be used for political purposes, whether it is to recruit supporters, or train people to take action or to fund raise. It just hasn't exploded the way other online tools have exploded.

Former congressional aide Nancy Scola, who was involved in former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's much-discussed 2006 visit to SL (screenshot at left), added that options like Facebook, YouTube and MySpace are dominating the online side of politics:

All the air's been sucked out of the room... If you're working inside a campaign, your single goal is to get your guy in the White House.  It doesn't leave a lot of room and motivation to play with new technology. Why mess with what's working?
 

If Barack Obama doesn't seem especially conversant with GTA IV, Madden or Fallout 3, there's a reason for that:

The last video game he played was... Pong.

The Democratic contender said as much in an Entertainment Weekly interview which probed his pop culture habits:

EW: What's the last videogame you played?

 

Obama: Pong. That gives you a sense of my age. I loved that game.