This week marks a historic vote for the American public as they head to the polls to choose a new president on Tuesday the 4th of November.  While Barack isn’t free to play, he has raised funds via microtransactions, and his campaign has set a historic precedent by being the first to use gaming technology to appeal to voters.

If you’ve been near a TV or any other form of media communication over the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed that both candidates have turned up the campaigning heat to a fever pitch.  Both Obama and McCain are hitting the campaign trail with more force that Hurricane Noel, but while McCain courts one type of voter, Obama is clearly catering to a traditionally low turnout group: Young voters aka, those with a pretty darn good chance of owning a console gaming platform in their homes.

Not only appealing to gamers, per se, Obama has also reached out to the young demographic via an iPhone application which urges voters to get the led out, and hit the polls on November 4th, as well as using the app to spread the word about the Senator from Illinois and his policies.  Once the Obama campaign had reached out to the über tech savvy folks (ok, I guess you don’t have to be über to own an iPhone, but you get my point), they set their sites on the console owners via the popular Burnout: Paradise title, as initially spotted and reported by Dragunov.

While Obama reportedly spent over $200 million on TV advertising, Burnout clocked in at a paltry $44,465.78 in comparison.  While this is only my own personal opinion, I’d be willing to bet the farm that Obama generated more awareness and press via his innovative use of in-game advertising than all of the networks his 30-minute long, World Series delaying infomercial combined.

Massive Incorporated, a Microsoft owned in-game advertising firm, has been behind the innovative strategy.  Massive handles all in-game billboards for Burnout: Paradise, an EA title, and a number of other publishers including 2K Games, Konami, Microsoft Games and Activision.

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

Again, Obama’s use of in-game advertising is a first, and a trend I’d expect to see continued in the future.  While a quick temperature check reveals that gamers have a wide range of opinions when it comes to in-game advertising, I personally didn’t hear too much flak regarding seeing Obama’s face plastered on a billboard.  As a matter of fact, I’ll go out on a limb here, and even say that they feedback was (dare I say it) positive.  An interesting point to note: Massively Incorporated reportedly spoke with both the Obama and McCain camps regarding in-game advertising.  Obviously, Obama’s campaign manager jumped at the opportunity, while McCain’s camp….well, let’s just say, the title of the article does NOT include John McCain’s name.