If we had our way, we’d do nothing but play video games all day every day. But eventually those pesky bodily needs get in the way, and we have to stop to do things like “sleep” and “eat” and “apply bandages.” But don’t get us wrong. Food is great, too. If only there was a way to make the game-to-food transition easier. What if the games themselves let us know about delicious food worth putting the controller down for?
Thanks to the crushing, blood-soaked gears of capitalism, there’s a chance that games you pay money for will still blast you with ads for other products, including food. There’s nothing wrong with games about food. Cooking Mama is a wonderful woman and Iron Chef makes perfect sense as a video game. We’re talking about games chock full of egregious branding that just happens to be for food. Here are the most shameless examples of food product placement in video games.
Death Stranding
Even though Death Stranding is now an actual video game real people can go buy with their own money, we still have tons of questions about Hideo Kojima’s bleak epic of sci-fi box delivery and baby calming. And we’re not talking about heady philosophical questions. Why is Monster Energy Drink featured so prominently? Not only can you make main character Sam drink it, but also piss it out. And then you can use that piss in your weapons, making this beverage the grossest power-up of the year.
Final Fantasy XV: Cup Noodles
The most recent and arguably hilarious example, Final Fantasy XV is a massive, sprawling JRPG that took a decade to make and still released a little unfinished. Square Enix hasn’t been shy about how much money the game needs to make to earn back its development costs. To help ease the burden, as well as make the game’s “realistic fantasy” vibe more believable, Noctis and the gang use real-world brands throughout their adventures like Coleman camping equipment and Cup Noodles. In fact, the game stops dead in its tracks for the characters to basically read a commercial about how delicious Cup Noodles are. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that’s my fantasy right there.
Darkened Skye: The Skittles Game
Darkened Skye is an insidious bit of product placement disguised as a game. At first, it just seems like a ho-hum, fantasy, action-adventure game. “Tomb Raider-style adventure with Magic” is what it says on the box. But as you play, you realize that all of your magic, from flying to shielding yourself to shooting fireballs to calling down bolts of lightning, is powered by good old-fashioned Skittles™ candy. Those sneaky marketing hacks!
Yo! Noid
Yo! Noid is the Power Rangers or Super Mario Bros. 2 of shameless food promotion video games. In 1990, Capcom, Now Production, and the self-deprecating pizza chain Domino’s took the unsuspecting NES platformer Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru and swapped out the main character with the infamous pizza thief The Noid. We all know we’re supposed to avoid the Noid, but here we must become him to save New York City from green slime or something.
Doritos: Dash of Destruction
Doritos, Mountain Dew, and Taco Bell form the holy trinity of gamer grub. Just ask Geoff Keighley. So a Doritos video game was as inevitable as the heat death of the universe. In Dash of Destruction, players control a Doritos delivery truck providing precious nacho cheesy chips to the masses as fast as possible while avoiding a deadly T-Rex. This concept, by Mike Borland, was the winning entry in a Doritos contest to design an Xbox 360 game. If you’re going to make a playable ad, you might as well crowdsource it.
Sneak King
The King from Burger King is the best, creepiest humanoid fast food mascot since Mac Tonight or the sexy new Hamburglar. In 2006 he appeared in a trio of branded Burger King games for the Xbox and Xbox 360. PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin’ were generic racing and bumper car games, respectively. Sneak King, however, is a game of the year candidate. In this stealth game, players control the King to sneak up on hungry, unsuspecting citizens and give them Whoppers. Imagine a remake of this running on the Fox Engine, the technology behind Metal Gear Solid V.
M. C. Kids
Even without its magnificent Moon Man, McDonald’s has a good amount of lore worth exploring in a video game. M. C. Kids is a 1992 NES platformer where two cool kids travel to McDonaldland to retrieve Ronald McDonald’s magic bag. Aside from prominent burgers and fries, that’s not too different from your average game. Later that year, the game got a different junk food brand in Europe when it became Spot: The Cool Adventure. You know, Cool Spot, the 7 Up mascot.
Major League Eating: The Game
This downloadable WiiWare game isn’t branded with specific food. It’s branded with the idea of eating as much food as possible for money and glory. Players control real-life professional eaters like Takeru Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, Sonya Thomas, and a bear with fighting game-like controls. It’s the perfect practice for the single-player competitive eating we all do every day.
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