Overwatch Was Just Used In A Political Ad

Apparently using video games as political propaganda is now a real thing. In fact, it's actually being used in a recent political ad by a politician currently running for office, who decided that the best way to get the point across was to latch onto the popularity of Blizzard's Overwatch.

Over on the official YouTube channel for South Korean Presidential hopeful Sim Sang-Jung, she's running a minute and 40 long ad themed around Overwatch.

The video hilariously shows Sang-Jung drilling the opposition with a flurry of questions that leaves them stumped. In the background of the video, the official Overwatch theme song blares triumphantly as she racks up points and combos against her political opponents.

As she drills the opponents and leaves them speechless, the points are counted as combo kills. Her relentless rhetoric and aggressive stance on her policies made for a perfect combination to highlight her as more than just a team player but as a team leader. The video rounds out with Sim Sang-Jung giving a speech in front of an audience while her special meter slowly builds up and eventually begins glowing blue, equivalent to when you use a bunch of your skills in Overwatch and you unlock your special ability.

The video compilation is titled as POTG, for "Player of the Game". This is usually reserved, in the actual game, for the person who was the most effective on the battlefield, helping their team toward victory.

It's not clear whether or not her campaign put together the video compilation or if maybe it was a separate committee who came up with the idea, but it's a brilliant use of pop-culture to help reach the younger voters in South Korea, especially given that Blizzard's games are hugely popular in the Asian region. As we reported on previously, Overwatch has more than 30 million registered users, and more than 5 million of those copies have been sold in China alone. That's not counting how many gamers in South Korea may have picked up a copy or registered to play at a PC bang. What we do know is that cumulatively the game has made over $1 billion in revenue for Activision and Blizzard.

It's smart of Sim Sang-Jung to use it as a part of her political platform for the upcoming election set to take place this week in South Korea on May 9th.

The South Koreans had to hold an emergency election following former President, Park Geun-hye, being impeached on some fairly massive and egregious corruption charges. The entire extent of the corruption seemed bizarre enough to come out of a Netflix television series (and don't be surprised if someone manages to adapt this real-life conspiracy into a TV show at some point in the near future). But Sim Sang-Jung wants to get the country back on track, especially in regards to improving regulation for workers' rights, and waging a war against the corruption left behind by the former President, including improving the overall labor infrastructure within Korea, which is laid out across a series of videos on her official YouTube channel.

It would be pretty crazy if Sim Sang-Jung did win, because then she really would be the "Player of the Game", and it would make the Overwatch reference that much more relevant.