One could not avoid a virtual billboard for the Obama campaign this week, during an online session of the racing game Burnout Paradise on the XBox 360. 

The reporting of a billboard was first confirmed on Thursday to the people at GigaOM by the game's publisher who sent an email related to it on Monday. This indicates to one thing, that for the very first time, video games have been chosen by a major political campaign to advertise. 

However, it seems that this new form of advertising too has it drawbacks, since last year, the UK's Advertising Standards Agency had banned posters for the Burnout series from the London subway. The ads being talked about here had slogans like, "inner peace through outer violence", which were thought to be quite provoking. 

The scheme chosen by the Obama Campaign to advertise itself through games has also been questioned by many including Wagner James Au, who feels that the campaign can be blamed for sending mixed messages. 

It is quite ironical to see Obama taking on to video games in order to grasp voters, since he was the one who earlier had advised parents to turn off the TV sets and take video games away in order to organize the children.