In 2006, I read a great blog post that pointed out how the professional media is still working from a very old picture of the American lifestyle. The post, called “Farm Fetish,” explained that more people in the United Stated have World of Warcraft (WoW) accounts than work on farms or ranches. I don’t know exactly where he got his numbers, but the most recent Census ones I can find (2006) list the number of people employed in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations at almost exactly 1 million. Blizzard’s most recently publicized (2008) subscriber numbers claim more than 2.5 million North American players. So the scale of the comparisson is right.

Go where the people are

Ok, so maybe you shouldn’t go to farms or WoW when looking for the statistically average American, but if you’re just looking for votes, that’s different; politicians need to address people wherever people can be found. Even if only a million of the North American players are in the USA and old enough to vote, think of how that compares to the farmer population! And odds are that a significant number of those other million and a half subscribers are simply too young and will be voting eligible by the next presidential cycle.

Take advantage of it

So why shouldn’t political campaigns take advantage of the shared interest? They could hold a “Maintenance Tuesday: Get Out The Vote” campaign to try and get players to commit to voting on Tuesday morning when the North American servers have their weekly maintenance. Using the scheduled maintenance means you don’t have to change anything about the game in order to reach players, and the morning of election day is when lines are shortest.

Talk about it

Since you don’t need to change anything with the game, it can be a very simple campaign, just talk about it. Talk about it in the forums. Talk to other media about it. When talking to people directly, mention it just like you might mention other targeted drives in an effort to get people to vote.

Who knows?

It might work, and you can get great coverage from showing that you actually understand how technology is affecting people’s lives. And it plays in Kansas.