On Fox News program The O'Reilly Factor, pundit Bill O'Reilly tries to drag Heidi Klum's Guitar Hero commercial into the culture wars, but even his two conservative female guests don't want to go there.

At issue is Heidi's Risky Business-inspired Guitar Hero shredding routine. O'Reilly is apparently concerned about the the moral effects of the commercial, featuring a lingerie-clad Klum, airing in prime time.

Then again, O'Reilly has never been much of a fan of video games. Or iPods. Or Blackberries. But Mr. Morality does enjoy a good loofa.

GP: Thanks to GP jack-of-all-trades Andrew Eisen for the sharp eyes...

Game makers have taken to Barack Obama in a big way.

The president-elect has already made appearances in a Saints Row 2 trailer and as DLC in Mercenaries 3.

Wii title Kidz Sports Crazy Mini Golf, launched this week by Data Design, now has a video up featuring Obama scoring some sweet holes-in-one while characters John McCain (at least, I'm guessing that's supposed to be McCain) and Sarah Palin look on in frustration.

Thanks to: GP correspondent Andrew Eisen for the tip!

If the Obama honeymoon isn't over for you yet, check out Super Obama World.

For now you can play an Alaska level or head to the Republican National Convention. But more levels are promised, including Illinois, Arizona and Washington, D.C.

If you like the very 8-bit looking online platformer, they've got merch you can buy as well.

Via: Kotaku

People for the Ethical Treament of Animals (PETA) has said "good boy!" to Sega after the publisher pulled a Samba de Amigo ad which featured a live chimp.

Why is that a big deal? PETA explains:

After learning that SEGA used a real chimpanzee in an online video promoting Samba De Amigo... we contacted the company.

We explained how involuntary chimpanzee "actors" are taken away from their mothers when they are just a year or so old and forced to perform confusing and repetitious tricks. We also explained some of the horrible methods that chimpanzee "trainers" use, such as electric shocks with shock collars and prods, isolation, beatings with sawed-off pool cues and slapjacks, and food deprivation. Then, at the ripe old age of just 8, the chimpanzees reach puberty and their showbiz careers are over—and they end up being dumped at dismal roadside zoos or sold to laboratories for experimentation.

Faster than you can mangle a Metallica song on Guitar Hero, SEGA pulled the video from its site and promised to keep all great apes out of its ads!

Okay, so they may not be the greatest games ever published, but the U.S. Air Force is serving up the full versions of three Midway PC titles - and they are absolutely free:

• The Suffering
• Area-51
• Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War

It's undoubtedly part of the USAF's recruitment effort, since the download site links over to Do Something Amazing, the flyboys' marketing presence on the web.

And, hey, including Area-51 in an Air Force promo is kinda creepy and cool at the same time, no? Somebody at HQ has a sense of humor.

Big Thanks to: GP reader Paulrus...

An Australian businessman who once was caught up in the legal battle over the Kazaa file-sharing network has launched a controversial, ad-driven war game.

As reported by the Syndey Morning Herald, Kevin Bermeister is the money man behind Rising Eagle - Gaza. The game pits Israel's elite Golani Brigade against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Players can fight on either side.

Bermeister, who is Jewish, told the newspaper that he wanted to "throw out a challenge to Iran." Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to destroy Israel.

People will get to know each other in a competitive battleground environment, get to text each other, speak to each other, connect with each other and figure out that they're human beings and they can get on with each other...

 

Just like Ahmadinejad is throwing out a challenge to Israel, I think this game throws out a challenge to Iran. Clearly the intent is that the Israeli Defence Force is the futuristic fighting force that is capable of overcoming anything thrown at it, and the challenge is for anyone to come and take a shot.

Rising Eagle has been developed in Israel. Developer Yaron Dotan also spoke to the SMH:

Dotan, 34, was delighted at the suggestion that his game, which includes billboard-size photographs of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looking like a monkey [see pic at left], might cause offence to Iranians. He describes the Iranian soldiers as "the Waffen SS of today".

"I want this to upset people. I hope it causes the biggest shitstorm in history," he said.

GameSpot has learned that Barack Obama's in-game ads on Xbox Live set the Democratic nominee's campaign back $44,465.78.

That amounts to pretty good bang for the buck, especially when factoring in the widespread mainstream publicity generated by the ads after GamePolitics broke the news of their existence on October 9th.

The Obama XBL ads were covered by, among others, the New York Times and Associated Press as well as most of the major news networks.

A new get-out-the-vote ad for Barack Obama includes a shot of a Wii controller accompanied by the words "You Can't Make History From Here."

In other words, put down your video game for a while and go vote. A sofa and a cubicle also serve as reminders to leave home or office to cast your ballot.

Obama, of course, made big news a couple of weeks back by embedding campaign ads in more than a dozen EA games on Xbox Live. In his campaign speeches he often uses video games as a metaphor for scholastic underachievment.

And, as GameCulture notes, the music in the ad "is pure 8-bit."

Sites which host game footage were advised by Bethesda yesterday that they must take down any trailers for Fallout 3.

With the highly-anticipated, M-rated game launching today, the move is ill-timed, to say the least. Maximum PC cites an e-mail from Bethesda VP Pete Hines:

In connection with ESRB's advertising guidelines, you are instructed to remove immediately any of our Fallout 3 trailers from your website, pending further notice.

Meanwhile, Edge Online speculates that a Fallout 3 trailer which shows an adversary's head exploding in slo-mo, might be at fault.

The ESRB maintains and enforces guidelines for game advertising. The content rating organization has occasionally intervened with game trailers in the past.

Bloomberg reports that Electronic Arts is considering allowing the highest bidding player to become the cover athlete on its best-selling Madden NFL franchise.

All money received from the winning bidder would go to NFL charity partner the United Way.

The news comes by way of EA Sports president Peter Moore, who told Bloomberg:

I bet you can find 50 players that would say, `I'd pay good money [to be on the cover of Madden]. The league does a lot of work with them to make them realize how lucky they are and a lot of them have come out of poor circumstances and they give back...

 

Our research tells us we don't see a huge up-tick or down-tick depending on who's on the cover -- [gamers are] buying Madden.

To my great surprise there was a plain brown envelope from Playboy Enterprises International in the GamePolitics post office box yesterday. Inside was the November issue.

After about three hours of perusing the magazine (in the interests of giving GP readers a complete and accurate report), I figured out the reason why Playboy sent the mag my way.

It seems that Miss November, Grace Kim, is a former publicist for Guitar Hero publisher Activision. The brief bio which accompanies her centerfold pictorial discusses her connection to the game: 

I play a mean game of Guitar Hero and I'm willing to challenge anybody. I must warn you I'm a very sore loser - at any game...

 

Grace says her ideal date is a round of Guitar Hero or Rock Band with perks.

Kotaku has a lengthy interview with Grace:

I had heard of an opening to work directly with the head director of Guitar Hero, so I applied, and I didn't think I'd get the job because there were so many applicants... but I also had a lot of PR experience. I was really blessed that they brought me on board. I think they appreciated my passion...

"Activision was getting annoyed [over the time demands of the Playboy picture shoots], and I wanted to keep my job [at first]... But my boss wasn't happy and I wasn't happy, and being a Playmate is a job. I really wanted to explore that area, and see where this path would take me. And, working so much for Activision kind of killed my love a little for Guitar Hero.

A man who rides Washington, D.C.'s Metro underground rail system has written to the Washington Post to complain about poster ads for Fallout 3 which appear in the Metro Center station.

Joseph Anzalone criticizes the ads as well as Metro management for accepting them:

In one ad, the Washington Monument and the American flags surrounding it stand ravaged, as if hit by missiles. In another, the Capitol dome is partially caved in, while the rest of the building and the city behind it lie in ruins.

The people of our city do not need a daily reminder that Washington is a prime target for an attack. We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like. Since any First Amendment objection would be irrelevant (the ads do not present a true viewpoint or political message and would therefore not be protected), there is no reason for these ads to be part of our daily panorama.

The ads should be removed, and the appropriate office at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority should be directed to exercise better judgment regarding what can be displayed in our transportation system.

GP: Whether the ads are in poor taste is a matter of opinion, but Anzalone gets his constitutional argument wrong. The First Amendment protects more than "true viewpoints" and "political messages". That's why they call it free speech.

Amber Lee Ettinger, better known as Obama Girl, has paid music video homage to Howard T. Ackerman, the hard-nosed, fictional U.S. President in EA's upcoming Command & Conquer Red Alert 3.

It's all hype, of course. But with Obama Girl and a Red Alert title, what's not to like?

Red Alert 3 launches next week for PC and in November for Xbox 360.

E3 2008 was a disaster. But what will the 2009 version look like - provided there is one?

According to Destructoid, all will be revealed tonight on G4's X-Play, hosted by Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb.

GP: Since there is hoopla involved, the ESA must be holding E3 next year - and it must be a very different animal (because if it was the same, everyone at ESA would be fired). Here are the possibilities as we see them:

• open to the public
• open to the public & combined with that other L.A.-based flop, E for All
• back to the pre-2007 extraganza, but open to industry and media only
• an entirely new show with an entirely new name... in an entirely new city?

UPDATE: I'm hearing unconfirmed reports that the ESA - which owns and operates E3 - is not on board with whatever E3 news G4 has planned for tonight.

UPDATE 2: G4 reports that E3 2009 will remain in L.A., but offer public admission - for a fee. Expect the ESA to drop the official announcement on Tuesday morning.

The Associated Press reminds us that today is the opening of Adderley et al vs NFL Players, Inc.

As GamePolitics reported last month, the suit was brought by retired NFL players who believe that they have been denied royalties from a variety of licensing deals arranged by the NFLPA, the union for active players.

The biggest point of contention in the case is Electronic Arts' best-selling Madden series. EA, however, is not a defendant in the lawsuit. From the AP report:

Retired players complain that, even though they signed licensing agreements with the NFLPA during a four-year period that ended in February 2007, they have earned little from the union's lucrative contract with EA.

The $35 million annual contract is the union's largest marketing deal, and the lawsuit is the latest salvo in the increasingly rancorous relationship between retirees and a union they say has given them short financial shrift...

In our previous coverage, GamePolitics carried excerpts of what the retired players view as smoking gun e-mails. An e-mail from PI exec Clay Walker discusses how Take-Two lost out in the deal. This would appear to refer to 2K Sports' failed All-Pro Football 2K8, which used names and likenesses of former players:

Take Two... went after retired players to create an “NFL” style video game after we gave the exclusive to EA. I was able to forge this deal with [the Pro Football Hall of Fame] that provides them with $400K per year (which is significantly below market rate) in exchange for the HOF player rights. EA owes me a huge favor because that threat was enough to persuade Take Two to back off its plans, leaving EA as the only professional football videogame manufacturer out there.

Over at the The AT Wire, gamer/blogger Alex Taldren picks a bone with the Video Game Voters Network.

It seems that the VGVN (which is operated by game publishers lobbying group ESA) took those now-famous Obama XBL ads as a hopeful sign:

Sen. Obama’s advertising leaves no doubts about the political significance of gamers. This outreach to the gamer community sends a clear signal to gamers that their voices are being heard and that the work of the Video Game Voters Network is having an impact.

Taldren doesn't quite see it that way, however:

Some politician uses some of his campaign money to place advertisements in video games and suddenly he is our savior?  Does anyone really think that Obama is going to remove video game bans and take our side just because he has a .JPEG on a billboard in Burnout?

 

...Does anyone really believe that Obama’s focus on video games can becomes anything more than problem?  The more attention politicians give us and the industry, the worse it’s going to get...

 

And, what I thought was once a network of gamers who wanted to keep politicians out of video games, has become nothing more than a Obama lap dog–a perpetuator of the problem.  I’m removing my Video Game Voter Network ad banner...

GP: Although the VGVN wildly overstates its contribution, we'll have to agree that the Obama ads are, on balance, a very positive development.

What do you think, GP readers?

Let's say that, using Little Big Planet's marvelous in-game tools, you've created an awesome level, one so good that other users will want to own it.

I Have the Princess frets that Sony has awarded itself the right sell your design:

Sony have recently made changes to their PSN terms of use, notably adding terms and conditions for user generated content. No doubt, this is a legal precaution leading up to the release of Little Big Planet, obviously there needs to be guidelines to allow Sony to define and take action again inappropriate content.

But what really got my attention were some of the rights Sony have concerning your generated content…

    You also authorise us [Sony] and our affiliated companies, without payment to you, to license, sell and otherwise commercially exploit your User Material
 

IHTP notes that SCEE previously said that users could sell their LBP content.

GP sister-site GameCulture comments as well:

...in three weeks, we could all be working for Sony, crafting and sharing levels that Sony owns outright. Perhaps some of those levels will end up being packaged as downloadable content, much the same way that fruit of some of LittleBigPlanet's best beta players is being packaged with the official release.

 

Of course, there's nothing untoward about any of that. After all, the LittleBigPlanet model encourages users to share their levels for free. The revenue we generate for Sony by building their content for them is just part of the genius of their business model. Crowdsourcing for teh win.

 

But how does the equation change as user-generated content becomes less a matter of remixing existing intellectual property by 'modding' a game and starts to look more like the creation of original work? What happens when the systems game developers build for us are less games than platforms for the creation of new games?

Since GamePolitics broke the news about Barack Obama's Xbox Live ads last weeks, they have become an international media sensation.

But, GP didn't actually find the ads; we were just first to report on them. Credit for the actual discovery goes to "Jeff", a 39-year-old gamer who lives in one of the 10 battleground states in which the Obama ads are running. He'd prefer that we not say exactly which state, for privacy reasons.

Married with a family, Jeff works in a machine shop and of this he told GP, "It's far more interesting than anyone will give credit, and more honest than most professions."

But life has not been all fun and games for Jeff. A couple of years back, he was involved in a high speed, head-on crash caused by a drunk driver, suffering horrendous injuries. Afterward, he spent nearly three months in a wheel chair and endured several surgeries. Despite it all, Jeff has managed to maintain his sense of humor:

I've had so much hardware installed and removed that I was feeling like a catch-all bin at Home Depot...

While recuperating and doing battle with insurance companies, Jeff kept himself busy by writing, drawing - and gaming:

I've always been something of a sideline gamer, dating back to the Atari 2600... but spending 14 hours a day watching Discovery Channel while waiting for my bones to knit together bored the crap out of me so I convinced my wife that we needed an XBox to supplement the PS2.  It allowed me to connect directly with other members of the Rooster Teeth community who had helped me stay sane through everything.
 

It's ironic that Jeff's now-famous pictures of the Obama ads were very much of a random occurrence:

The funny thing is that I had already played through 97% of the game months ago and it was collecting dust on the shelf.  I had only tossed it in [the Xbox 360] because we just bought the new TV and one of my daughter's friends wanted to see the motorcycles in action.  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.  It was a genuine "WTF?" moment.

Jeff snapped the pictures directly from his TV screen (left) using an Olympus 550UZ camera. He never imagined that they'd go very far:

The only reason I took the photos to begin with was to share them with my friends. [My friend] Claude asked if he could show it to a few people to get confirmation, because he was rightfully skeptical too. I agreed and now this thing is just taking on a life of its own...

I just saw [the Obama ads] on a blurb on MSNBC. That's crazy. I'm actually a little glad they aren't mentioning my gamertag anymore, though part of me is a bit pissed that they aren't giving [GamePolitics] proper credit for breaking the story.

 

The truly ironic part of this entire ride is that I find myself being the catalyst for Obama's media exposure.  As you said, I was the only one to say anything about it and now it's being picked up across the web - far outside the original 10 states that the ads were planned for.  That's exposure that exceeds the original investment of his campaign by an order of magnitude.  For that matter EA must be clapping their hands at the prospects of increased revenue to their checking accounts.  As they say, "you can't buy this kind of advertising..."

 

Granted, anyone could have done the same thing, but this time it happened to be me.  That's an odd feeling that I'm still trying to get used to. 

Ironically, Jeff is neither an Obama or McCain supporter. He's just an average guy who games.

MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo has a couple of points to make regarding the now-famous Barack Obama ads on Xbox Live.

Stephen reports that if you're playing Burnout: Paradise on PlayStation 3, for example, you won't see the Obama ads. They are running only on Xbox Live. Instead, you'll see a faux car ad. For XBL players who want to check out the Obama ads, Stephen provides detailed instructions on how to locate them in-game.

Pictures of Obama ads in additional EA games are starting to pop up. Examiner.com has shots from Madden 09 and NBA Live 09. Destructoid has a Madden pic as well.

It's interesting to note the diverse opinions of gamers on the ads. Examiner's Tom Hall, for example, hates them:

Shouldn't we be allowed to escape this 3 ring ring circus once and while?  Do we really have to have this crammed down our throats 24 hours a day?  I'm pretty thankful that they have yet to discover the technology that lets them beam ads into my dreams... Video games, at least for me have always provided me with the escape from reality that I just plain need sometimes.

Meanwhile, Destructoid's Brad Nicholson seems to like the in-game ads:

After the Burnout piece, I found myself wondering the impact that political ads can actually have. Have any of you been swayed to vote early, or consider Obama over that other candidate? Do you consider this intrusive? Personally, I enjoy this ad much more than a Nike one because it at least has a message that is important. I like sneakers and all, but politics and blueberry pie are higher on my priority list.

As for GP? Since I run GamePolitics, it should come as no surprise that I love the idea of political ads in games. Here's what I told the Dallas Morning News:

Some gamers are saying, ‘We don’t want politics mixed in with our games,’ and some think it’s a very cool use of the medium. It’s a defining moment for not only advertising in video games but the political connection with video games.

A decade ago, John McCain, senator from Arizona, voted for passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

These days, John McCain, Republican presidential candidate, is feeling its sting. That's because the DMCA is heavily weighted in favor of content rights holders, often at the expense of everyday content users - like the McCain campaign.

As Wired's Threat Level blog reports, YouTube has turned down a request from McCain's people to take a closer look at fair use issues before yanking their videos at the request of DMCA take-down notices. From Wired:

The McCain campaign on Monday fired off a letter to YouTube complaining that the company had acted too quickly to take down McCain's videos in response to copyright infringement notices. McCain campaign general counsel Trevor Potter argued that several of the removed ads, which had used excerpts of television footage, fall under the four-factor doctrine of fair-use, and shouldn't have been removed.

 

But citing the DMCA, a controversial copyright law that McCain voted to approve a decade ago, Levine pointed out that YouTube risks being sued itself if it doesn't respond promptly to takedown notices.

By way of example, Cnet reports that YouTube has taken down McCain videos at the request of CBS and Fox because they included clips from on-air interviews.

Last week GamePolitics broke the news that campaign ads for Barack Obama were showing up in EA's Burnout: Paradise on Xbox Live.

Since that time the story has gone national, with coverage by among others, the Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today. ABC News and CBS News have mentioned the Obama ads on their websites, although not on the air - so far.

With tonight's final Presidential Debate taking place at Hofstra Unoversity in New York, will the XBL ads come in for a mention? If they do, it will almost certainly come from McCain. There is speculation that McCain's debate strategy this evening will seek to raise questions about Obama's readiness for the White House.

Could McCain use the XBL ads in an effort to paint Obama as geeky or frivolous? If he does, will such charges resonate with voters? Or will McCain come off as out of touch and, well, old?

It's all speculative, of course. We'll find out tonight.

As we reported on Sunday, Richard Garriott rocketed into space aboard the Soyuz TMA-13.

GP sister-site GameCulture has posted a fascinating story detailing some of what the Ultima series creator has gotten up to.

Among other activities, it seems that Garriott is doing some sophisticated hyping of Tabula Rasa, his latest MMORPG. From GameCulture:

...live footage streamed from the capsule's cabin showed the veteran game designer grinning through the faceplate of his helmet, holding a card with an array of icons written on it... The icons were 'logos,' an ancient form of pictographic communication used by the Eloh, an alien race that forms part of the lore of Garriott's latest MMO, Tabula Rasa...

 

the official Tabula Rasa website... provided a single clue — the message was a famous quote... In what is certain to be the first intergalactic mini-ARG (alternate reality game), the power of crowdsourcing and collective intelligence manifested itself quickly. By yesterday afternoon, gamers at PlanetTR... were already celebrating victory. One of the board's members, Valashar, claimed to have successfully translated the cryptic quote... [it is] Earth is the cradle of humanity but mankind will not be in the cradle forever.
 

Tabula Rasa, by the way, is set in space.

GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair is reporting that those now-famous Obama ads running in Burnout Paradise are visible only to gamers who are connecting to Xbox Live from 10 potential battleground states. From GameSpot's coverage:

The EA representative said the ads would only appear in 10 different states, most of them contested battleground states. Paradise City residents in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin are being targeted by the campaign...

The Obama campaign is only running on the Xbox 360 version of the game, as it was handled by Microsoft-owned in-game ad firm Massive Incorporated... As for the absence of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the EA representative said Massive had approached the Arizona senator's campaign about Burnout advertising.

GamePolitics broke the news of the ads last Thursday.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times is now quoting EA PR rep Holly Rockwood to the effect that the Obama ads are running in eight additional games:

• Madden 09
• Nascar 09
• NBA Live 08
• Need for Speed Carbon
• Need for Speed Pro Street
• NFL on Tour
• NHL 09
• Skate

Last week GamePolitics broke the news that in-game ads for Barack Obama were apparently running inside Burnout: Paradise on Xbox Live. Although we sought comment several times from publisher Electronic Arts before running that story, no confirmation was forthcoming.

GigaOm, however, managed to get the official word from Holly Rockwood, EA's director of corporate communications, late yesterday:

I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout. Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates. Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.

In the meantime, we've got an exclusive follow-up with Dragunov765, the gamer who took those great photos which originally brought the ads to our attention:

The photos were taken Oct. 6th, 2008 in my living room with an Olympus 550UZ... I imported them directly from the camera into Photoshop because Photobucket won't handle any images over 1Mb and I generally shoot in super HQ...  Beyond reducing the file size for posting to the internet, no other adjustments were made to the images.  The files I sent you were the images that came off the camera.  I would have taken more, but I didn't even have the memory stick in there because I'd just completed downloading some other photos and hadn't put it back in.

The funny thing is that I had already played through 97% of the game months ago and it was collecting dust on the shelf.  I had only tossed it in because we just bought the new TV and one of my daughter's friends wanted to see the motorcycles in action.  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).  It was a genuine "WTF?" moment.

Running with Scissors has released an election-themed poster featuring the Postal Dude, anti-hero of the ultra-violent Postal game series.

Also depicted is the Postal Dude's dog, Champ, a pit bull wearing Sarah Palin glasses.

RWS boss man Vince Desi explains, sort of:

Posters are a powerful medium. From politics to movies to your favorite musical group, young and old people around the world have been infected by this unique art form...

We've only gotten one report of this, which seems a bit odd, but an Xbox Live gamer who goes by Dragunov765 has posted photos of what appear to be in-game ads for Barack Obama.

Dragunov (we know his real name, too) says he came across the ads while playing Burnout Paradise earlier this week and posted them on his Rooster Teeth journal page. We were tipped to the pix by a GP reader who vouches for the guy. In turn we contacted Dragonuv, who commented on the ads:

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...)
 

The ads mention that early voting has begun and reference voteforchange.com. That site says that it is "Paid for by Obama for America" and helps voters find early voting locations in states that permit the practice (which has indeed begun).

EA reps did not respond to several attempts by GamePolitics to verify the ads.

GP: Bottom line? If the ad pix are Photoshopped, ya got me, Dragonuv. But I don't think they are. Dragonuv is no kid and my gut tells me he's on the level. 

And in any case, why couldn't - why shouldn't - a candidate make use of in-game ads? After all, it's the new, new thing, and Obama has been courting the youth vote all along.

The concept of in-game political ads does raise some issues, however. Does the campaign get to choose the games in which their ads appear? We have to think they do. Having one's campaign ad appear in GTA IV, for example, might hand an opposing candidate an opportunity to sling mud. 

With Fallout 3 launching later this month, Bethesda has placed ads for its post-apocalyptic adventure in the Metro Center station of Washington's D.C.'s subway system.

Some riders don't quite know what to make of the marketing campaign. digital metropolis reports:

In the four minutes I had to waste while waiting for the metro to come, I counted 37 people walk by, stop, and stare at this ad. For those who don’t know, Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic DC, and word on the street is that you can play down in the metro tunnels in addition to roaming the streets...

 

Anyway, metro riders were transfixed by this ad. Unlike the “Fred, your ass is looking fat” hippo posters or the metro etiquette ads, the crumbling Washington Monument and mutated American flag caught a lot of eyes, and people STARED. Like, legit stared...

Meanwhile, Mike Musgrove of the Washington Post offers his own account:

Don't get too freaked out, commuters: It's just a video game.

 

Local game studio Bethesda Softworks has blanketed the advertising space in downtown's Metro Center Metrorail station with some dark and kinda disturbing images of DC landmarks, such as a bombed-out-looking Capitol building and Washington Monument, lifted from its upcoming game title Fallout 3.

Joystiq has more, including a photo gallery.

Dean Takahashi reports in VentureBeat that Google will begin offering a service that will place ads into online games.

The search giant's beta launch of AdSense for Games will initially target Flash games. Takahashi cites figures showing that 200 million games of this type are played online each month. Sony Pictures, Sprint and eSurance are among advertisers participating in the rollout.

Game publisher Konami is on board and will reportedly publish Flash versions of Frogger, Track and Field and Dance Dance Revolution with Google ads included.

Where does Google go from here? Not surprisingly, Takahashi sees further expansion:

Google’s entry into Flash web games is likely just the first step. After this, you can expect to see the company move into PC downloadable games, console games, and then mobile games. Rivals in those markets include NeoEdge Networks, Microsoft’s Massive, Double Fusion, IGA Worldwide.

 

This is one more ad market where Google and Microsoft can duel... The Yankee Group predicts the market will be worth $971.3 million by 2011. Proponents of in-game ads believe that gamers will embrace them because the ads can be integrated into storylines or environments. You can, for instance, put an ad into a billboard inside a game. That ad can change every time the user passes by the billboard. Of course, it’s hard to do that in genres such as fantasy games.

A settlement has apparently been reached between Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two Interactive and the Chicago Transit Authority over the agency's removal of ads for the controversial game from its vehicles and facilities.

GamePolitics readers may recall that during GTA IV's launch week, the CTA yanked the ads following a Fox News report which sought to relate the popular crime game to a rash of local shootings.

Take-Two filed suit shortly thereafter, accusing the CTA and sales agent Titan Outdoor, LLC with breaching a $300,000 contract. A document filed by the defendants with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan last week indicates that a settlement is imminent, although no details are provided.

Take-Two declined to comment on the case.

The owner of public relations firm which represents video game publishers also runs a video game website at which games are reviewed.

Credit Joystick Division with bringing the situation to light.

The game review site in question is GameCyte, while the P.R. firm is TriplePoint (formerly Kohnke Communications). Richard Kain (left) runs both. From Joystick Division's lengthy expose:

Richard Kain, TriplePoint PR’s General Manager and Founder, in fact formed a new company – Pantheon Labs – under TriplePoint’s roof to create GameCyte, as a way to bring “quality journalism” to the gaming media – and then deliberately concealed his ownership of Pantheon and GameCyte.com using domain privacy services like Domains By Proxy, a Joystick Division investigation indicates.

 

Then, when it came time to put together the GameCyte team, he staffed the site exclusively with TriplePoint PR employees – his former account executive the site’s most prolific reviewer. And by Mr. Kain’s own admission, some of the highest-reviewed games on GameCyte are from Telltale Games – a company he just so happens to be invested in.

Venture Beat's Dean Takahashi offers additional info:

In a phone call with me today, Kain said, “I f***ed up in terms of the degree of disclosure.” He noted that he had links to both firms on his Facebook page but neglected to disclose the ownership in the “about” page for GameCyte. Now the “about” page has been changed to include the disclosure...

 

 You can put this one down in the “major whoops” column. It’s going to be hard for people to give the PR firm the benefit of the doubt and to trust GameCyte’s reviews, given how the relationship was unearthed. But so far, it doesn’t look like anything worse than bad judgement.

GP: We linked to GameCyte twice last week on stories which added follow-up information to the Activision piracy lawsuits revealed recently on GamePolitics. Activision is not listed among Triple Point's clients.