Maybe Scotland has that figured out. With the BBC reporting that the Scottish government will be spending 10,000 pounds (roughly 20 grand American) on in-game advertising focused on anti-drunk driving messages, I'm a slight bit more positive about the whole concept.

Sure, I still think that in-game advertising is a exploitation of a captive audience, which also furthers some people's hatred of corporate culture and the rise of multinational corporations. It manages to take any realism it could have added to a certain title and flushes it because I'm pretty sure Brand X doesn't own every billboard and signage in major metropolitan areas.

I'm also pretty positive that no one here in America or in other countries really pays attention to the anti-drunk driving message. For years America (and other countries) has been using scare-tactic advertising to sell teens and adults on the merits of avoiding drunk driving, but while I don't have numbers to back up the assumption that it really isn't helping, the amount of people I have known since my early days in college who drove drunk is (to my mind) fairly astounding.

However, this new campaign seems like a fairly decent idea on the government's part. In an ever-changing technological world where governments and political action groups seem more and more disconnected from young gamers (and, really, teens and earlier adults in general), somebody finally had the bright idea to meet them on their own terms. Sure, I bet many gamers will be annoyed by the loss of the new Brand X ad from Need For Speed: Carbon, but to my mind lessening the consumerist bent that's being put into games these days is a good thing. Plus, maybe one or two people will make a better choice from it.