A Gamer Backlash Against Politics on the Console?

Recently-launched Crsipy Gamer writes about some backlash brewing in the game community over the politics of in-game ads, Obama's latest YouTube ad and the Videogame Voters Network.

According to Crispy blogger James Fudge, gamers have taken a "tone of mild anger" in response to a shot of a Wiimote in a 30-second clip put out by the Obama campaign last week. The image of the Wii controller is accompanied by text stating that "you can't make history from here." Images of a couch and an office cubicle in the video bear the same subtitle. Fudge says that some gamers have been put off by the ad because "it lightly insinuates a notion that gamers are lazy creatures."

We think that's being a bit oversensitive. The criticism would carry more weight if the game controller and the couch were the only images in the video. The couch is a potent icon of our sedentary culture, and the videogame controller, like the TV remote, is one of several devices that often get lost under the cushions, its owners smeared as out of touch boobs. But the inclusion of the office cubicle shifts the context of the message and simply underscores the fact that political change, regardless of where you hunt for it, requires voting, which, in turn, means taking a break from the stream of daily life. That's our two cents, at any rate.

Fudge also says some gamers are seeing bias in the ESA's Videogame Voters Network. In a statement highlighting the Obama campaign's historic launch of political advertising in videogames, VGN wrote:

For too long, politicians have seen video games as a legislative punching bag for regulations in ways they would never regulate books, music or TV. Today we see a clear sign of change.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for President has become the first presidential candidate ever to advertise for his campaign inside about a video games. According to the Associated Press, Sen. Obama is advertising in eighteen video games encouraging gamers to register and vote.

Fudge was struck by the use of the word "change" in the statement, which he sees as a reference to the Obama campaign's central theme:

What struck me as interesting was that the post highlights the campaign’s popular theme of change. I was always under the assumption that the VGVN was a non-partisan group that only had an allegiance to gamers and not a particular candidate. Our emails soliciting a response from the ESA have yet to be answered.