Video games cost a lot of money to create and develop, which means sometimes development houses need a little extra money to make ends meet. This often results in bringing in outside sponsors to help things along at the expensive of tossing in some real-world ads into a game. In many way this creates a more immersive world, but more often than not it sticks out like a sore thumb on a man made of hands whose fingers are all thumbs; That’s not a pretty picture and I’m sorry for bringing it up.
Phantasy Star Portable 2 – Pizza Hut Armor
Do you know what I love? Really cool armor! Fantasy video games are pretty awesome on their own, but getting to upgrade your armor makes grinding and grinding, and grinding, with a little more grinding, worth it. Getting that wicked dragon scale, mithral coated, space marine armor is validation for all the work, unless of course you play as a female character in which case it works in reverse. So when Phantasy Star Portable 2 dropped fans didn’t expect a lot of product placement. Let’s face it, the game isn’t built around the real world, or even our world/universe. This futuristic space game thing was pretty cool, but you wouldn’t expect to see Starbucks on some space colony resort.
So you can understand fans surprise when Pizza Hut showed up in this alternate future universe. But this went past just a few little references and items (purchasable pizzas were a thing, as well as being able to buy the scary Japanese Pizza Hut mascot thing) the real let down was the Pizza Hut branded armor you could equip. That right, you could strap on a shield made out of a Pizza Hut box and attack enemies with a pizza pan. I suppose you could probably burn the inside some aliens mouth and then finish them off by finding out they have a gluten allergy.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory – Axe Body Spray
The original Splinter Cell was a fantastic game that is best remembered for pushing curtain physics to their limits. It was also a huge seller for Ubisoft, so when a followup came around it was weird to think that Sam Fisher would need a little extra help taking out foreigners. Then again, Axe Body Spray would make for a good tool to mark enemies as you can smell someone wearing the frat boy shower from a mile away. Now, the product placement itself isn’t that embarrassing as Axe is a thing in modern times, but it was pretty in your night vision goggle wearing face. You’d expect a super secret agent would get custom specialized gear, but we can suspend our disbelief if he used a Samsung phone, or Intel based something. But I’m not buying huge Axe billboards in some third-world dictatorship.
To be fair, Ubisoft let us know before the game dropped that they would naturally integrate real world products into Chaos Theory, but this is Ubisoft we are talking about, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So when the game came out and we saw that massive, and I mean MASSIVE neon sign on rooftops all over the game, fans let of a collective sigh. These ad placements were anything but natural, and paired with Fisher’s neon green specs lit the hero up like a Christmas tree. But at least that’s the last time we’ll see Axe on this list.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker – Axe Everything
I thought I said we were done with Axe, but it seems that smell lingers around like a bad penny. Hideo Kojima is heralded as a genius, but give the man too much freedom and he starts making about as much sense as the drug addict down the street that thinks he’s the second coming of President Taft. To be fair, Kojima may have already spun that into one of his movies that are broken up by gameplay consisting of wiggling around the joystick for a few minutes. Not content to live of the massive sales of anything Metal Gear, Kojima loves adding product placements like a kid on Halloween; I.E. they simply can’t stop until they get really sick and vomit out they story of Metal Gear Solid 2.
While Ubisoft made it clear that they would integrate ad placements naturally (cough, cough, they didn’t) Kojima loves his Doritos too much to really care what fans would think. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a game I have to mention is set in the 1970’s, features an Axe t-shirt that Snake/Big Boss/Snake Plisken can wear, as well as an actual can of Axe (something I just thanked Ubisoft for not doing in their game set in modern times) that is used as a recovery item in the Japanese version of the game. Then again I’m pretty sure there is something branded with the ‘Jungle’ tag in the vast, VAST, Axe product line.
Darkened Skye – Skittles
We’ve talked about some games that had terrible protect placement forced in, but what about a game that is nothing but a giant product placement; and no, we aren’t talking about Cool Spot, The Noid, or even those nightmare inducing Burger King games things. Instead we get Darkened Skye for the Gamecube, a game that was forgotten before it even hit store shelves. Featuring a cover that looked to feature the lead character from that Gen 13 comic book, Darkened Skype had generic written all over it.
It was a fantasy adventure featuring a large breasted girl who uses magic to vanquish evil. It’s all pretty bog standard, but what make things special is that the magic takes the form of Skittles. Yes, Skittles. You use the little colorful candies by combining them together to cast spells of all kinds because something, something, taste the rainbow. CNN Money even went as far as saying the game was “the most blatant product placement since Chap Stick in those commercials for The Mothman Prophecies.” Fun Fact: regular application of Chapstick brand Chapstick will protect you from evil.
Phantasy Star Portable 2 (again) – Colonel Sanders
Oh, Phantasy Star, how far you have fallen since the glory days on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. If you thought the Pizza Hunt armor was silly (and it totally is) you’ll be happy to learn that Kentucky Fried Chicken also lives in this future reality. Not only does KFC have chicken eating establishments, Colonel Sanders is actually in the game.
Not only is he in the game, but the elderly Mark Twain ripoff is more than some NPC and can actually join your party of techno future people. If you do decide to play with the chicken king he can use his cane like a magic wand that no doubt shoots out diabetes and gravy at an incredible value.
Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension – Chupa Chups
Zool (not to be mistaken with the puzzle game of the same name; or is that Zoop?) is a… Gremlin? As you can guess, Zool came about during the height of the mascot craze of the 90’s, a decade where you couldn’t take a step without squishing an anthropomorphic lead video game. Over in England, people were super into proto desktop computer things and had as many different ones as we had nightmare inducing mascots. The Amiga was such a computer, and while it did make it stateside thanks to it’s audio capabilities, it didn’t make much of an impact in the home market here. But over in England, the Amiga left fans chuffed to bits… bangers and mash… Mary Poppins about games?
Zool was meant to be the Amiga mascot that could compete with both Mario and Sonic. A cute (citation needed) character that kids could get behind lead Amiga systems to fly off the shelf; Or so I would assume. Zool in and of itself went on to become pretty darn popular, but it never reached Mario and Sonic levels and would eventually devolve into Ninja Bread Man, but that’s an entire article all on its own. One issue with the development is that the Zool team didn’t have Nintendo or Sega like money to make Zool as Zooly and they Zooled. Enter Chupa Chups! Chupa Chups are what I can only imagine an alternate name for Chupacabra offspring, so their inclusion is sort of… What? Okay, so I’m being told Chup Chups are lollipops.
Anyhow, the deal between the two wasn’t anything new, but it’s clear that Chupa Chups got the better end of the deal.The entirety of the first level of the game is based solely around Chup Chups. Every single screen is full of the lollipops and you’d be hard-pressed to take a screenshot without at least one Chupa Chups logo in frame. There’s in-game advertising, and then there’s Chupa Chups the game. Kids can put up with a lot of things, which is why subtle advertisements tend to work, but even kids saw right through this sad sale of the developers souls.
FIFA ’94 – Adidas & 3DO
Everyone knows the FIFA series of soccer, foutbol? Soccer! Roundball? Well, whatever you call it in your part of the world, the series is pretty much the only “game where you use your feet to kick a ball” simulator around. It’s also not uncommon to see ads in various sports games as it’s part of the experience when you watch a sporting event on television. Well, it would be if you watched sports, or you local team isn’t blacked out because television is bullshit. FIFA 94 was innovative as being one of the first soccer games to use the isometric view that became the norm until all soccer games went into the 3rd dimension.
While FIFA hasn’t been innovate in years, FIFA 94′ also introduced real-world advertising into the game. The MS-DOS version of the game (that’s the scary looking operating system we used on computers before Windows that required typing everything in) incorporated scoreboard ads for the then new Adidas Predator soccer shoe. This makes sense and I actually remember using the shoes myself, but they also had ads for the competing Panasonic 3DO, another console as obscure and scary as MS-DOS. Not even FIFA and free advertising could save the mess that was the 3DO.
Counter-Strike – Subway
Subway is no stranger to terrible video game advertising (cough Uncharted cough) but this case is one for the ages. Counter-Strike is a very popular game, so much so that a lot of YouTubers use it to scam people into gambling on sites they own, which is totally illegal on a federal level, but that’s none of my business. Subway saw an opportunity in Counter-Strike as the game was free to play online as long as you had the game and access to the internet. One feature that Counter-Strike had is the ability to use sprays to leave images all over the map that you are playing on. Before memes and hentai were a big thing, most people sprayed stuff from the Half-Life series, but the game also allowed you to import your own sprays into the game.
Subway noticed this and hired an in-game advertising agency who thought it a good idea to spray Subway posters all over maps. Seems like a good gig for those involved as you just played Counter-Strike all day and spray a few Subway ads along the way. The problem is that Subway and the ad agency didn’t have permission to do this and players, along with Valve got pretty pissed about the entire thing. Subway had violated the games terms of service advertising in the game and Valve took them to court over it. Before the case could get before a judge Subway settled with Valve in a deal that probably netted Valve offices with free Subway for life. Or at least Half-Life. 3. Half-Life 3.
But don’t think Valve the hero that fights for the rights of gamers as the company would actually start selling in-game advertising space in Counter Strike a little bit later.
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