Did Politics Successfully Intercepted the Video Game Industry Subtlety?

by Zane Glasgow

The fact that more and more people have been spending their time at home for the past months, the entire video game industry seems to have made the most out of it. The sales of game subscriptions, consoles, survival servers from different games and individual games have seen a sharp increase brought by the pandemic.

Are games being used as a Political Tool?

However, alongside with the increase in global recognition, it seems that politicians and political activists are using online games in order to create awareness in raising their concerns. Not many would have noticed it, but many election campaigns have taken advantage of the platform for years.

Well, this isn’t entirely a new phenomenon because in the past few years, they’re programmed for that specific purpose; advertising games for a specific candidate or party with limited range.

Politics and In-Game Ads

On the other hand, it is quite different when it comes to in-game advertising. This has somehow made advertising to be an accessory of the campaign and just became a game’s extension. As a result, it didn’t become to be the primary purpose of the game not like with social media. Running ads in video games for the most part has some exception and no one is exempted from it.

Doing commercial advertising that we are seeing in video games these days never reached the predicted levels 10 years back – even less in political ads. This is as per communications expert Christoph Klimmt. He stated that the technological challenges kept as one of the main challenges in establishing wider reach. Incorporating advertisements is already quite complicated as these are software suites that are interactive in its own right.

Though according to Klimmt, video games and politics do not need to be mutually exclusive. There’s a big potential in the complex combination of social or political messages with the added entertainment of video games.

The Challenge to Campaign Managers and Strategists

This is the reason why campaign strategists and managers have to think two times over whether what they are planning would lead to a worthy investment or not.