Product placement has been in games for many years – discreetly, or not so discreetly, promoting junk meals and sweets to kids. But as time’s gone on they’ve gotten extra refined, sneakier, and sillier.
Sometimes it’s simply to tow the celebration line, like how Nathan Drake – a treasure hunter who free climbs, containers dangerous guys, and falls out of planes every day – makes use of a Sony cellphone with a again made out of glass, essentially the most breakable of all supplies.
Sometimes they’re simply apparent cash-ins to show an affordable buck, just like the Papa John’s sponsored races in The Crew 2.
And typically they’re simply down-right unusual – bear in mind the time you may have the Burger King as your ringside boxing coach in Fight Night?
After Capcom decided to ruin its Street Fighter character designs by slapping Pro Tour patches over every default costume in the game – earlier than mysteriously pulling all of them lately – listed here are a number of extra of essentially the most misjudged, weirdest, and memorable situations of product placement we are able to bear in mind in games.
Dole Bananas in Super Monkey Ball
I like to think about the dialog that led to this partnership: “Get us in that Monkey Ball game – I won’t take no for an answer!”, the Dole government shouts, creasing his banana-yellow enterprise go well with as he slams his fists on the curved boardroom desk.
The humble banana is rarely removed from the leathery mits of all of our favorite cartoon apes, so it’s solely pure that an organization would need to cash-in on that affiliation. But I can perceive wanting the identical watch as Daniel Craig in Spectre or to tuck right into a Pizza Hut just like the Ninja Turtles, however who’s severely coming away from Super Monkey Ball with a potassium-starved lust for Dole-brand bananas?
Doritos t-shirts in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
The Metal Gear Solid collection is not any stranger to a little bit of fourth wall breaking or overt product placement. There are loads of foolish ones that deserve a point out – Calorie Mate in MGS 3, which seems almost 20 years earlier than they have been really launched, as an illustration – however Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP was completely chock filled with adverts.
These embrace extra ironic brand t-shirts than 100 hipster hangouts, in addition to collectable cans of Mountain Dew, Axe physique spray, and packets of Doritos.
One of the extra palatable placements is in MGS4 – which deserves a particular point out for really including one thing to the game – the place a useful iPod permits you to take heed to developer commentary through the MGS4 Integral Podcast.
“Realistic” promoting boards in FIFA 19
“But adverts in FIFA make sense because it’s realistic,” I can hear you saying already.
One of the largest headline updates to FIFA 19 this was the introduction of the official Champions League and Europa League licences, together with absolutely branded presentation packages – together with life like adverts and all.
This offers rise to an enormous incongruity although as a result of, as one of many greatest advertisers with the Champions League, PlayStation advertisements are plastered everywhere in the sides of the pitch – even on the Xbox One model. Surely this must be the one time a blatant advert for a rival console has appeared on its closest competitor?
Pepsi is the one factor to outlive the apocalypse in Bionic Commando
Around 2009, slap-bang in the midst of the 360/PS3 battle for supremacy, there was a little bit of a pattern for rebooting basic characters and franchises. Batman: Arkham Asylum redefined the third-person motion style, whereas the revamped Wolfenstein has spawned two stellar sequels on current-gen platforms. Picking up the rear although, was Bionic Commando – a fun-enough reimagining of the 1986 NES game of the identical identify. I bear in mind enjoying it on the time, however solely since you might get it for £10 from the native GameStation.
In Bionic Commando, you’re preventing by means of a ruined, earthquake-ravaged metropolis to clear your identify. This means essentially the most memorable issues in a in any other case unremarkable panorama of brown rubble are the pristinely indestructible Pepsi merchandising machines that line that partitions of lots of the dilapidated buildings you swing and shoot your means by means of.
No matter what number of bullets you fired, explosions you set off, or skyscrapers you crumbled, nothing might lay a scratch on the almighty Pepsi machines – which was positively a stipulation of the contract.
White Mage Wedding Dresses: Designed by Vivienne Westwood in Final Fantasy (with bonus pixelated Katy Perry and Ariana Grande)
Final Fantasy has a historical past of frown-inducing vogue partnerships – Lightning’s pretend interview about Prada is value testing when you fancy a great cringe – however whereas some are fairly delicate, others are like a slap within the face from a moist, oily fish.
The greatest instance of this in FFXV is that Noctis and crew’s punk tech-ninja outfits have been designed by Japanese luxurious different model Roen – not that you simply’d know, for the reason that game doesn’t inform you. But whenever you attain the Accordo capital of Altissia, there’s a complete sidequest devoted to taking a look at Lunafreya’s marriage ceremony costume within the window of a heavily-branded Vivienne Westwood store.
It simply raises so many canon questions! Does Vivienne Westwood exist within the Final Fantasy universe? Is it an alternate actuality the place a distinct particular person independently created the identical model?
What’s extra, Final Fantasy’s cellular spin-off Brave Exvius has had some fascinating pop music tie-ins lately, together with tiny pixelated Katy Perrys and Ariana Grandes. Not the primary artists we’d affiliate with 100 hour JRPGs, however why not, eh?
Nobody likes The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff
There are a million-and-one cynically branded DLC packs for The Sims, however essentially the most controversial stays The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff from 2007 – which on launch obtained this now legendary evaluation from author Steve Hogarty, calling the cynical money seize out for what it was, in UK journal PCZONE:
The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff DLC evaluation.
Lol.(Via r/gaming) pic.twitter.com/YwbuhAkfe5
— Michael Shillingford (@MusterBuster) October 25, 2015
It’s a measure of how normalised beauty DLC is these days that 60 units of digital clothes now looks as if nice worth for a tenner. But writer EA didn’t see the humorous facet and massively received the hump, allegedly blacklisting the publication.
It doesn’t seem like The Sims do branded Stuff Packs lately, however they nonetheless value £10 every (and there are 14 of them).
Gigi Buffon goes excessive in World of Tanks
There are a number of bizarre sporting partnerships to come back out of the “World of” games, however the look of legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon in World of Tanks to advertise their Tank Football mode through the 2018 World Cup is definitely the strangest.
Not simply because Italy weren’t on the 2018 World Cup, however when you accomplished sufficient challenges within the game mode you may unlock Gigi himself as a Tank Commander that may very well be deployed in PvP.
It’s a reasonably surreal picture to image a sportsperson piloting a battle machine into battle, and has received to be one of many solely situations the place an precise, real-life celeb is doing stuff in-game, and never some fictionalised model of themselves. Plus, how does he drive it with goalie gloves on?
Colonel Sanders fights sci-fi enemies on PSP
Speaking of fictionalised variations of actual folks, some product placements are simply so bafflingly hilarious that they’ll begin to win over even essentially the most skeptically minded observer. One such instance is the unbelievable determination to incorporate KFC’s mascot and noteable Santa-lookalike Colonel Sanders as an AI Buddy in PSP hack-and-slash Phantasy Star 2 Portable.
It’s as weird because it sounds. It’s not a cheeky brand within the background or a branded merchandise being utilized in context, however an aged southern gentleman taking to the battlefield in an effort to flog you fried hen. Just watch the video:
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