Screw Ohio. Screw Colorado. What does the voting public of Azeroth, population 11 million, think about the upcoming presidential election.

Machinima.com hopped into World of Warcraft to find out. So is Azeroth a red or blue state? I’m not sure which was more surreal: Listening to undead Warlocks and human Paladins talk about the right to choose and which character the candidates would be in the game or watching what looks like a minotaur in a bikini poll people.

This is a must watch, but because it’s funny as hell and because it sheds a bit, a very small bit of light on what some gamers think of the candidates.

If the computing media — not to mention Linden Labs themselves — were to be believed, we should be deeply immersed in our Second Lives by now. Companies are using it for press conferences, people are having sex inside it — Sweden even has an embassy in it, for goodness' sake. Although early in the primaries there was a flurry of SL activity, things seem to have quietened down.

The author believes that this is largely due to the difficulty in raising funds from within SL — it is difficult to check where donors are based, and many are from outside the US.

Perhaps Linden Labs' estimates of the number of SL users is a little on the padded side, too. If you are unsure just how many of the 14 million or so residents actually log in on a regular basis, how much time are you going to devote to talking to them?

Both McCain and Obama have criticized video games — most notably McCain, although Obama has made repeated pleas for parents to 'turn off' their kids' consoles and get them outside — and might be wary of seeming to endorse such a controversial medium by actually appearing inside it.

And then of course there are the griefers. Honestly, if I were running for president I would want to do so in a public forum that carried the lowest possible risk of being buzzed by a flock of winged penises.