Product Placement in Video Games
Interactive content such as games can be combined with advertisement in the form of product placement. Virtual characters can use sponsored objects and move in commercially themed environments. Further, quests and missions can contain brand messages. Those placements are most often sold by the video game owner to paying brands and agencies.
However, sometimes the economics are reversed and video-game makers pay for the rights to use real sports teams and players. Today, product placement in online video is also becoming common.
Online agencies are specializing in connecting online video producers, which are usually individuals, with brands and advertisers.
The following lists some examples from three decades of product placement in video games:
- Pole Position (1982)
- An early example of product placement in a video game is in 1982's Pole Position which has billboards along the track for other Atari Games.
- Pole Position II
- In Pole Position II the in-game billboards were paid adverts for Dentyne gum, 7-Eleven convenience stores and Tang orange drink mix.
- Action Biker
- A later example occurs in Action Biker (1984) for Skips crisps, a product by KP Snacks.
- Crazy Taxi (1999)
- More recently, Crazy Taxi (1999), featured real retail stores as game destinations.
- Alan Wake
- In Alan Wake the Energizer brand features prominently in the form of batteries and flashlights. Verizon also features in the game in the form of in-game billboards and cellphones, including Verizon's "Can you hear me now?" campaign.
Read more about this topic: Product Placement
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“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)