Xbox LIVE is Ready to Rock... The Vote!

Posted by Anton Gordon at 6:49 PM Aug 21, 2008

Politics are coming to Xbox LIVE! Microsoft and Rock the Vote are teaming up to inform and register new voters via Xbox LIVE and will have a presence at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. This is actually really great news so I won't be mocking either Microsoft or Rock the Vote for this partnership, but you wouldn't be reading this site if you didn't want snark, so I've got a healthy dose of that after the jump.

At first you'd assume that targeting a young, tech-savvy crowd would favor Barack Obama, but anyone who has actually gamed on LIVE knows what a racist cesspool it can be. Playing a game online often sounds like its being accompanied by a live reading of truck stop bathroom stall graffiti. And I definitely can't imagine anyone interrupting a game of Gears of War by saying "Hey friends, what do you make of the differing energy policies of Obama and McCain? Let's discuss while we frag. Ooh, head shot! Curb stomp that motherfucker!"

As an active follower of both gaming and politics, I'm quite pleased to see this kind of story, and it makes me wonder how else video games might be touched by the election. Clearly we're not going to see John "Whuzza? Where are my pants?" McCain jump on LIVE for a Game with Fame session, but Obama's not much more of a gamer. He claims the last game he's played was Pong, which is powerfully lame. But if either candidate WERE to jump online for some Halo 3, what do you think their gamertags would be? I'll suggest BarackStar, The O-BOMB-A, and ChangeBelievR for our Democratic nominee, and "Cindy, help me work this galdarned computing machine!" for the Republican.

Got your own suggestions? Toss 'em up in the comments section. Best one gets a prize: self-esteem!