When politics and Gaming clash

When Reddit crashed recently with "Obama" doing his QandA session gamers and the cool kids of the Internet sat up and took notice. Perhaps it was at this point that Nexon,renowned developers of Maple Story, realised that their social experiment with gaming and politics might be more of a success than they bargained for.
With elections coming up it's no surprise that political agendas are once again starting to seep into everyday life. With that in mind Nexon America has co e up with a unique feature of Maple Story that lets the players effectively vote on their favourite politician, with Obama and Romney being variously favoured. Here is Nexon's Pres Release showing this Politics Vs Gaming idea.

Obama leads in online gamer poll

Nexon America’s MapleStory polls players, partners with Rock The Voteto offer in-game campaign event

Nexon America has released the first player poll as part of its “Great Maple Election Quest 2012,” with Barack Obama preferred over Mitt Romney by 80 percent of those participating in its survey.

The survey, run on the Maplestory website from Sept. 7-9, asked players to vote on their preferred candidate for the presidential election. The poll received votes from 18,373 respondents in the United States, with 13,935 favoring Obama and 4,438 favoring Romney.

The poll is a small part of a major event currently being held in MapleStory. The “Great Maple Election Quest 2012” will include additional player polls, and will also include wide-ranging in-game election events running up to Election Day on Nov. 6. Additionally, MapleStory has partnered with Rock The Vote to encourage players to register to vote and participate in the real presidential election.

Any registered MapleStory player in Nexon America’s service could participate in the survey, which includes a sizeable audience outside the U.S. Players outside of the U.S. favored Obama 87 percent to 13 percent for Romney, 9,752 votes to 1,291 votes. Those who participated in the poll will receive an in-game item, called the “Buff Freezer.”

It was not all bad news for the Romney campaign, as he was favored by players in Utah, Montana and North Dakota. By wide margins, though, Obama swept the “swing states” of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.

“It is exciting to see our players voice their position on something as important as a presidential election,” said Min Kim, Nexon America CEO. “Our players represent a very important voting block.  This event in MapleStory gives our players an outlet to have their voices heard, in and out of the game, while providing an avenue for them register and become part of the election process.”