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[BiggNife]

The Sony smartphone in Uncharted 4 stuck out to me. I've never even seen a Sony branded smartphone in the states, much less one that gets full service while standing underground (destroyed clocktower).

Uncharted 4 does that too. Everyone has a Sony Xperia.

If I'm being honest, the Xperia stuff in UC4 never bothered me the same way the stuff in Quantum Break did. I guess it's because the Xperia just looks like a generic Android phone, which isn't all that uncommon in the States even if that specific model is.

Meanwhile, I can't remember the last time I saw someone use a Windows Phone in public. And I specifically remember QB zooming in on Surface and Nissan logos while I can't remember that sort of thing happening in UC4.

 

[adamsapple]

The Sony smartphone in Uncharted 4 stuck out to me. I've never even seen a Sony branded smartphone in the states, much less one that gets full service while standing underground (destroyed clocktower).

To be fair that looks like any phone. It's not pushing the Sony or Xperia branding in your face.

 

[Tunesmith]

Edit:

My answer is MGS4 as Apple clearly payed a great deal to get iPod and Apple products in a multitude in scenes. I'll never forget that one cutscene where everything went in slo-mo and as the scene was framed on Ottacon a macbook slowly came into frame and took up the entire frame. Lol.

Bah! Beat me to it



I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Kojima probably pushed to have those real-world devices in the game; guy loved the iPod at the time - and Apple were probably happy to license it's appearance if they also included that current iteration of the iMac.

Shame they never went back to patch it to make it look like the actual 2014 revision though.

Yeah, Apple doesn't pay for product placements, they have a pretty fierce internal policy on that actually. The company relies heavily on free product placement and they offer creators the opportunity to use their brands in their works.

 

[DrArchon]

I wouldn't call this an in-game advertisement at all. It's not Spirits Within was still being sold in any real capacity when LiS came out.

More like a cheeky reference than anything else.

 

[cakely]

Have we done this one yet?

From Life is Strange:

EDIT: Yeah, we definitely have. My bad.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Alan Wake Verizon billboards and Energizer batteries.

Why do I have no recollection of this? Was this something they added later on?

 

[OnPoint]

Sonic proved he was the ultimate sellout in Sonic Adventure 2 by shunning his iconic red sneakers in favor of Soap shoes.

Game has a bunch of Soap advertisements all over the place as well.

Too bad they're all washed up today.

 

[RoyaleDuke]

I'm still mad they removed the product placement and t
he licensed music from the psn release.

Damn, that is a fucking shame. I haven't played it since arcades or the Dreamcast.

Ahhh. Dreamcast. I love you.

 

[noqtic]

Need For Speed Underground 2...

Some people may not remember it, but oh my gosh it was so blatant.

 

[plasmawave]

Why do I have no recollection of this? Was this something they added later on?

No, you even get an achievement for watching their commercial on in-game TV.

 

[mindsale]

Not quite Ads in Games, but in season 1 of Netflix' House of Cards there's a great PSVita plug.

 

[mindsale]

Oh man, Sobe. That reminds me of some weird show TBS aired around 4am a decade ago where a couple of guys would talk about video games and whenever it was time to plug their show sponsor they would completely shit all over Sobe and say how horrible it tasted.



There most certainly was a major Pizza Hut promotion back then. I have fond memories of begging my parents to go to Pizza Hut to get the TMNT toys in their kids meals and to get a chance to play the TMNT arcade game. I also remember after that Pizza Hut had a cool promotion where you could get a free VHS with some episodes of the X-Men cartoon on them with their kids meals. Also who could forget The Land Before Time hand puppets from the Pizza Hut kids meals? Man, I miss childhood trips to Pizza Hut.

Also the pizza was so much better then it was unbelievable. Pan-cooked, real mozzarella with a way better taste than today's Pizza Hut, family-style booths, arcade machines, Darkwing Duck and X-Men cross promotions...

 

[Caayn]

Came for this. The devs tried to convince everyone that the loading didn't take longer with the ads. They were taken with their pants down to say the least, they had to go back and remove them again. It really pissed people off because the ads weren't in the game originally!

Now that I think about it didn't EA try something similar with Madden and Battlefield?

 

[DrKelpo]

Good lord... Quantum break surely is on another level

I mean, look at this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPVgT5F-JFM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUHGOJs-RUA

 

[Metzhara]

I dunno. When they get too ridiculous, they work just because they're stupid. For me, the stand out was Axe Body Spray in Rainbow Six Vegas. Had ZERO reason to be there. Randomly sitting on a counter. Even had content tied to it. A movie played when you interacted with it or something I recall.

CupONoodles, sure, we get it. You're Japanese and you're bizarrely entertaining. But Rainbow Six and Axe? That one is still worst.

 

[TheMink]

I find this thread fun to read, but I would say that product placement =! shameless product placement.

 

[Rellik]

I wouldn't call this an in-game advertisement at all. It's not Spirits Within was still being sold in any real capacity when LiS came out.

More like a cheeky reference than anything else.

It's pretty standard in Square Enix games as well. I like it.

 

[kubus]

How about the shameless Subway promotion in Uncharted 3? Granted, that was just for the multiplayer.

They even made a taunt that has you emote "a foot long sub".

 

[Rellik]

How about the shameless Subway promotion in Uncharted 3? Granted, that was just for the multiplayer.

They even made a taunt that has you emote "a foot long sub".

I now want a Subway.

 

[xealo]

This was more SE poking fun at their own product not being all that well received. Both spirits within and life is strange were published by SE. Id call this an easter egg rather than shameless product placement.

 

[knkng]

Oh man, Sobe. That reminds me of some weird show TBS aired around 4am a decade ago where a couple of guys would talk about video games and whenever it was time to plug their show sponsor they would completely shit all over Sobe and say how horrible it tasted.

"This looks like a big bottle of horse semen, and tastes like it too!"

Dave and Steve's Video Game Explosion, I thought of the exact same thing. That show was incredible, they seemed to be on a mission to get cancelled. They constantly shit on the company producing the show, as well as their sponsors. I remember in the last episode they reviewed Mr. Mosquito and said that the Japanese were obsessed with having sex with little girls because we dropped a nuke on them, or something along those lines. The show was complete madness.

 

[FanDeNintendo]

No love for Captain Novolin?

 

[Boss Doggie]

Easily my favorite.

primarily because it's kitkat yet it dispenses drinks?

Cup noodles is at least funny. A Mercedes in Mario Kart looks out of place and lame product placement.

So apparently a Mercedes in a Mario Kart isn't funny?

 

[Dimitri LH]

Parasite eve 2 had Coca Cola stuff

But at least those items made sense considering the games took place in the Los Angeles 90's era.

 

[Hissing Sid]

First thing that came to mind. I remember being put off by it when I was a kid thinking it just seemed weird to have something from real life in it.

Yup, Zool.

Chuppa Chups is plastered all over the game. I bought this for the Amiga back in the day and I seem to remember getting a free lolly in the game box.

If any sealed Zool games still exist out there It'd be interesting to see how the free lollies have fared over the past twenty odd years.

Probably fossilised. Still the same taste then..

 

[sn00zer]

I'm generally fine with product placement except when it just breaks the universe its set in....or when the ad texture has insanely high resolution compared to the rest of the game.

 

[Bootador83]

The original:

Though I'm not sure if this classifies as product placement or just an ad.

James Pond (Aquatic Games or Robocod?)

 

[PillarEN]

Phantasy Star Portable 2 had stuff that has zero context within its world as opposed to a Verizon billboard or a pack of Airwaves.

How about Colonel Sanders and a Pizza Hut shield. Lol

http://kotaku.com/5640954/youve-got-colonel-sanders-in-my-phantasy-star-portable

EDIT: I see it was covered on the previous page.

 

[Rellik]

Easily my favorite.

primarily because it's kitkat yet it dispenses drinks?

There are KitKat drinks.

 

[mindsale]

There are KitKat drinks.

There's nothing more refreshing than the crisp, clean flavor of suspended wafer bits in room-temperature liquid chocolate. (Sound of can opening). Ahhhhh.

 

[Sweetloaf]

Billy Savile OBE? That's creepier than any Silent Hill by far!

 

[Garlador]

At least it was temporary.

 

[| Praxis |]

Yeah, Apple doesn't pay for product placements, they have a pretty fierce internal policy on that actually. The company relies heavily on free product placement and they offer creators the opportunity to use their brands in their works.

That's a surprise actually. The amount of Macbook's I see in shows with stickers covering the Apple is crazy.

 

[Otaku Coder]

Billy Savile OBE? That's creepier than any Silent Hill by far!

Oof, that's retroactively dark...

 

[Taker34]

Splinter Cell

That was really weird at the time since the German voice actor for Sam Fisher also did the VO advertising for Airwaves. So it was less jarring for Germans I guess.

 

[nded]

Wipeout HD got some flak when they started showing advertisements during the loading screen.

 

[HyperZone<3]

Crazy Taxi with KFC and Pizza Hut.

I need to find a young person and expose them to Crazy Taxi. I'm retrospect (character design, music, Tower Records) its really late 90's.

 

[Kent]

Quantum Break did this shit too. Every computer was a Surface, every person had a Windows Phone, and every car was a Nissan. Super jarring. There's a way to do product placement in a way that's semi-tasteful, but Remedy definitely hasn't figured it out.

At least all of the Monarch employees having uniform tablets and phones kinda makes sense. The only particularly jarring part was that every phone sounded exactly like mine.

As for the Nissans everywhere... I honestly wouldn't have been able to tell unless people pointed it out. Generic cars lack brand identity to me.

 

[gypsygib]

I prefer real adds in games than made up adds so long as the game get to adapt the add to the game world.

 

[NickatNite]

nfs burnout

 

[Boss Doggie]

There are KitKat drinks.

wait what

Billy Savile OBE? That's creepier than any Silent Hill by far!

iirc you can rename doctors