Advertising in video games has been with us for decades and in the nineties we witnessed a heyday of product placement. An obsolete practice that, however, has blatantly crept into our consoles more than once.
The product placement or product placement is defined as a paid product message that is inserted in a planned and discreet way within a television program, a movie or a series. This brand strategy can promote a product or a brand in order to influence the public of such entertainment media and achieve a purchase decision. However, for its effect to be positive, its insertion must be done within the narrative, that is, organically and not forced.
These types of messages are made up of visual, auditory and plot elements and aim to overcome the rejection of traditional media advertising. The development of new entertainment media such as video games has allowed marketing experts to expand the scope of this advertising technique.
Generally, the promoted product is used by the protagonist or another character, either it is present in the background as part of the stage. Product placement has a greater effect in video games since, in some cases, it allows interaction with the recipients of said advertising message, in this case the players. In short, this technique applied to video games perfectly combines advertising and entertainment.
Sometimes this product placement can be very discreet and go more or less unnoticed. But, in others, the product placement can generate ludonarrative dissonance in the players.
How many times have we been sneaked product placement into video games and we didn’t realize it?
1. Final Fantasy XV (2016)
First of all, we find the subtle insertion of the famous Cup Noodles in Final Fantasy XV both on billboards that advertise the famous brand of noodles as well as a whole Cup Noodles foodtruck that we can visit. A somewhat controversial product insertion choice as it introduces a real everyday item into a fantasy and made-up world that can take the player out of the gaming experience.
2. Alan Wake (2010)
This masterpiece, which received numerous nominations for renowned video game awards, managed to completely organically promote two brands: Energizer and Verizon. A brand of batteries widely known worldwide that is perfectly introduced into the gameplay of the game, forcing the player to use Energizer batteries to use the flashlight. On the other hand, the posters of the Verizon telephone company populated the scenarios, thus remaining in the subconscious of the players.
3.Phantasy Star Portable 2 (2009)
This example of product placement is possibly one of the most disruptive and least organic that we can find. And the thing is, the designers of Phantasy Star Portable 2 thought it was a good idea to give one of the characters a shield that is neither more nor less than a Pizza Hut box. They added a foodtruck from the well-known pizzeria… in case the shield needed an upgrade?
4. Tony Hawk’s Saga
Sports games and, among them, skateboarding games were in the nineties and early two thousand a wide showcase of brands and products. The Tony Hawk’s saga is famous for its locations of the Vans shoe brand, which is the most used and well-known among skaters. In Tony Hawk’s Underground (2003) you can see various Vans posters on the stages where we practice skateboarding. More recently, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (2020) allowed players to wear the iconic shoe.
But skaters don’t live on sneakers alone, and in Tony Hawk’s Underground (2003) we also had an establishment of the most famous fast food restaurant in the world: McDonalds. Without a doubt, a good strategy to whet the appetite of the players.
5. EverQuest II (2004)
We have all suffered from the inconvenience of playing and not wanting to stop to eat, right? Well, EverQuest II was ahead of its time and in 2004 it gave us the opportunity to order a pizza from Pizza Hut from within the game itself. This online game allowed you to order from the chat by typing ‘/pizza’ which automatically connected players to the Pizza Hut portal and place an order without leaving the game.
6. CrazyTaxi (1999)
The well-known and famous Sega game Crazy Taxi, which debuted in 1999 in arcade or recreational machine format, was a mine of product placement without any kind of cheek: Pizza Hut, KFC, Fila or Tower Records were some of the brands that we saw when tour the streets of Crazy Taxi. The arcade, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube and PC versions did include the locations of those marks. However, upon their arrival on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Steam, these were removed and replaced with fakes.
7. Zoo Ninja of the Nth Dimension (1992)
Zool Ninja of the Nth Dimension, released for the Commodore Amiga, was meant to compete with Sonic and Mario who reigned supreme in the 1990s. This video game was known as the Chupa Chups game and the Spanish brand sponsored this title. However, the developers of this platform were not too discreet when promoting the famous Chupa Chups.
8. Mario Kart 8 (2014)
In 2014, Nintendo’s most famous racing game added the possibility of choosing cars from the German brand Mercedes Benz. Cars that do not represent any advantage over the rest of the traditional models in the game, except for the pleasure of being able to drive a Mercedes car. However, many fans of the saga did not welcome this product placement in a positive way since its realistic models broke with the fantasy of the worlds that we see in Mario Kart.
9.Death Stranding (2019)
We knew that Hideo Kojima was a product placement expert who in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010) introduced brands like Doritos, AX or Pepsi. In 2019 he did it again with the bizarre Death Stranding game featuring cans of Monster energy drink. Cans that the protagonist Sam could ingest to recover energy and that functioned as consumables. This product placement was replaced by a generic brand in Kojima’s Director’s Cut edition.
10. Pepsi Invaders (1983)
Atari developed a game for The Coca-Cola Company that was never released commercially and was given as a gift to sales managers at a company convention in 1983. In this shooter emulating Space Invaders (1978) , players had to shoot the Pepsi letters that approached their ship. The Guardian magazine included this title in its list of the best examples of product placement.
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