It will go down as a mere footnote in U.S. election history, but Barack Obama has become the first presidential candidate to buy billboard space in the virtual landscape of video games. Over the past 10 days or so, reports have filtered in from players of the driving game “Burnout: Paradise” who were caught by surprise by the candidate’s visage beaming down from a roadside ad reminding them that the polls are now open for early voting and directing them to VoteForChange.com. Turns out the signs are just part of a buy that involves nine Xbox 360 titles from Electronic Arts and take advantage of relatively new technology that allows advertisements to be dynamically inserted into Net-connected games.

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