Obama's in-game ad bill: $44.5K

Tonight, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is paying about $1 million each to CBS, NBC, and Fox to run a half-hour campaign ad during primetime. However, one high-profile attempt by the Illinois senator to reach young voters didn't come at such a premium.

For weeks now, Obama has been running in-game ads in games such as Burnout Paradise for the Xbox 360 across 10 battleground states. The full campaign started on October 6, runs through November 3, and spans a reported 18 games. According to the Obama campaign's pre-general-election filing with the Federal Election Commission, the Democratic challenger paid Massive Incorporated $44,465.78 for online advertising in early October.

Massive has previously said that it also approached Republican presidential candidate John McCain about advertising in games, but the senator from Arizona passed on the offer. As of press time, Massive representatives had not returned GameSpot's request for clarification as to how much of the ad campaign that payment covered.