EA Confirms Obama Presence in Burnout Paradise

Electronic Arts has confirmed reports that adverts supporting Democrat Senator Barack Obama's campaign for the US presidency have indeed appeared in the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Paradise.

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout”, Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts said. “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.”

The ads were pictured last week, but without confirmation from EA the possibility that they were fakes lingered in the air.

While this doesn't reflect the political views of EA (unless advertising dollars from John McCain have been refused), the fact that Obama's buying advertising on Xbox Live and his opponent isn't does tell you a bit about who the candidates are targeting.

Massive, Microsoft's own in-game advertising company, handles EA advertising on the 360. Unsurprisingly, it's another company - IGA - that handles EA's advertising on Sony's platform. No real conspiracy as to why the ads are appearing on one platform but not the other, then.

We're eager to see if Hockey Mom, Sarah Palin ads crop up in Infogrames Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter on the PC or maybe even Gizmondo's Hockey Rage 2005 on the N-Gage.

^{Source: gigaom}