Using the Huffington Post’s Fundrace 2008 website 1UP ran a piece detailing the presidential campaign contributions made by a variety of video game industry employees across all hierarchies.

As Gamepolitics remarks:

It’s worth noting that a fair amount of the money donated went straight into the black hole of failed campaigns.
[Activision CEO Bobby] Kotick and his wife, for example, each gave $2,300 to Republican Mitt Romney’s ill-fated bid. Valve’s Gabe Newell, creator of the Half-life series, gave Democrat Chris Dodd $2,300, while Spore designer Will Wright sent $3,500 Rudy Giuliani’s way (and made us wonder what Will thought he saw in the irascible former Big Apple mayor).

One of Gamepolitic’s readers has a possible answer to that:

Clearly Wright supported Rudy because the creator of SimCity has always had an intense fascination with the way mayors handle catastrophic disasters affecting their cities, and 9/11 was as close to the game’s Godzilla button as you’re going to get.

Here’s the full list:

Activision
Brian Kelly, Co-Chairman
$4,600, John McCain (R)
Ron Doornick, Director
$2,300 Mitt Romney (R)
Nina Kotick, CEO
$2,300, Mitt Romney (R)
Robert Kotick, CEO
$2,300, Mitt Romney (R)
Brian Barnes, Game Designer
$2,000, Ron Paul (R)
Erol Otus, Designer/Illustrator
$700, Ron Paul (R)
Charles Homic, Programmer
$400, Ron Paul (R)
Travis Stansbury, Attorney
$325, Ron Paul (R)
Chris Nelson, Programmer
$285, Ron Paul (R)

TOTAL: $15,210 to Republicans

ZeniMax Media (Bethesda Softworks):
Brendan Anthony, Game Programmer
$352, Barack Obama (D)

TOTAL: $352 to Democrats

Blizzard Entertainment:
Kyle Harrison, Technical Artist
$500, Mike Huckabee (R)
Christopher Ryder, 3D Artist
$500, Ron Paul (R)
Jesse McCree, Video Game Designer
$250, Ron Paul (R)

TOTAL: $1,250 to Republicans

Electronic Arts:
William Wright, Vice President, Designer
$3,500, Rudy Giuliani (R)
Cindy Nicola, VP, Talent Acquisition
$4,600, Barack Obama (D)
Steven Schnur, Worldwide Executive Mark (?)
$4,600, Hillary Clinton (D)
John Taylor, Technical Arts
$2,365, Ron Paul (R)
Michael Lawson, Software Engineer
$2,300, Fred Thompson (R)
Ian Schmidt, Sales
$1,300, Fred Thompson (R)
Sharon Zezima, Attorney
$1,000, Hillary Clinton (D)
Jason Horwath, No title listed
$840, Barack Obama (D)
John E. Taylor, Technical Artist
$500, Ron Paul (R)
Timothy Cotton, Game Designer
$234, Ron Paul (R)
Jason Fisher, Software Engineer
$225, Ron Paul (R)

TOTAL: $10, 424 to Republicans; $11,040 to Democrats

Ensemble Studios:
Mike Wagner, Computer Stuff
$221, Ron Paul (R)

TOTAL: $220 to Republicans

Flagship Studios:
Christopher Lambert, Game Programmer
$500, Barack Obama (D)
Jeff Lind, Software Developer
$340, Barack Obama (D)

TOTAL: $840 to Democrats

Firaxis Games:
Sergey Tiraspolsky, Software Engineer
$230, Barack Obama (D)

TOTAL: $230 to Democrats

Obsidian Entertainment:
Michael Edwards, Computer Programmer
$355, Ron Paul (R)

TOTAL: $355 to Republicans

PopCap Games:
John Vechey (Quarter 2, 2007), Game Developer
$2,800, Barack Obama (D)
David Haas, COO
$270, Barack Obama (D)
John Vechey (Quarter 1, 2007), Manager
$250, Hillary Clinton (D)

TOTAL: $3,320 to Democrats

Valve Software:
Gabe Newell, Managing Director
$2,300, Christopher Dodd (D)
Bill Van Buren, Producer
$250, John Edwards (D)
Christopher Green, No title listed
$500, Barack Obama (D)

TOTAL: $3,050 to Democrats

-Jens