Like many other students on campus, I enjoy playing video games online. Nothing makes me laugh harder than hearing 12 year olds talk smack while losing a game of “Madden NFL.” But what doesn’t make me happy is knowing I might have to see political ads while playing. Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign and Holly Rockwood, a spokeswoman for Electronic Arts, confirmed to the Associated Press last Wednesday that the campaign has been running ads in online video game play. “These ads will help us expand the reach of VoteforChange.com, so that more people can use this easy tool to find their early vote location and make sure their voice is heard,” said Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro.Rockwood said the ads are aimed at a typically hard to reach demographic — males 18 to 34 years old. Rockwood told a tech blog, GigaOm, “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates. Like political spots on television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.” EA, which produces such games as “Madden NFL,” “NCAA Football,” “Burnout Paradise” and the “Call of Duty” series, is running Obama ads in nine of its games. EA’s motto, “It’s in the game,” now takes on new meaning in the digital world with regards to campaigning. Gamers who enjoy going at high speeds in the game “Burnout Paradise” were caught off guard this weekend when they saw the billboard featuring the Illinois senator’s face and the words “Early voting has begun. Voteforchange.com.”  The campaign said the ads were being run in 10 states that allow early voting, several of which are battleground states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Nevada. Neither the campaign nor the EA rep would say how much the ads cost, only that they will be running through Nov. 3.  The amount of time the ads will be running varies from state to state. Gamers in bigger states may see the ads for a short time, while gamers in smaller states could see the Obama ads for the entire month. Microsoft gathers credit card information from gamers when they register for the Xbox Live subscriptions. This information can then be used to send regionally relevant ads to the individual while he or she is playing online.  It’s ironic Obama is the one putting these ads in video games. After all, Obama told a Pennsylvania crowd in August that parents need to “turn off the television set, and put the video games away, and instill a sense of excellence in our children, and that’s going to take some time.” It seems to me Obama is all over the map on this one. Some University student gamers found the idea of political ads on video games very interesting. “It’s a great idea,” said Nick Arnold, political science freshman. “[Obama] is definitively touching base with a group of people who might not vote. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Arnold, who said he hasn’t seen the ads, also believes they are definitively going to “piss some people off.” He thinks some people are going to be annoyed that there is nowhere to hide from political ads. It was bad enough the football team got rocked by Florida two Saturdays ago, but the fact that I had to get barraged with campaign ads in between just added insult to injury.  In this day and age you can’t go anywhere without seeing some sort of campaign sign, whether it’s “Joe Plumber” running for school board or Sens. McCain and Obama running for president.It’s getting absolutely ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong — I’m very political, and I think this election might be the most important one our generation faces. But the rhetoric is all the same; neither candidate has said anything different in the past couple of weeks. Most of the time the content in political ads is spun or twisted versions of the truth anyway. The unfortunate thing is people sometimes buy into the spun information. It would be nice if we could just enjoy a game of “Madden” or an LSU football game without having to deal with political ads. What’s next? Pasting political ads into DVD released movies? I’m honestly surprised neither candidate has sponsored a NASCAR car. It would just be nice if we could turn on the TV or Xbox and get our entertainment without the political nonsense. —-Contact Matthew Gravens at [email protected]