5 gaming product placements that were too weird for this world.

 There are few elements of modern media more pervasive and pecuniary than the much-maligned product placement. In return for some cash to help get your game finished and distributed, companies insert their references to their products so that audiences needn’t feel any respite from corporate advertising culture.

(Images property of Atlus, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Kojima Productions, Naughty Dog and Nintendo)

However, not all product placements are as sinister as I make them sound. In fact, over the years, video games have included a wide variety of product placements that range from confusing to downright bizarre. Here, I have curated a list of some of the product placements in games that are so baffling that I’m not even sure they’re advertising anymore.

Death Stranding - Monster Energy

The grim, post-apocalyptic USA of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding is in equal parts dangerous and clearly based more on Iceland than America. Deadly, ghostlike spirits roam the land, forcing much of what remains of humanity underground. 

(Image property of Kojima Productions and Sony Interactive Entertainment)

As such, it isn’t the sort of place where you can imagine maintaining a successful energy drink manufacturing chain. Despite this, the brave entrepreneurs of Monster Energy have seemingly managed it because, at various points throughout Death Stranding, players are encouraged to watch their digital Norman Reedus chug can after can of the stuff.

(Image property of Kojima Productions and Sony Interactive Entertainment)

In the context of the game, the Monster acts as an anachronistic recovery item for the player’s stamina, allowing them to keep the protagonist, Sam Porter-Bridges, fit and healthy for his pan-American odyssey. In reality though, the inclusion of the green and black cans is one of many not-so-subtle product placements included throughout Kojima’s 2019 walk-em-up. While it is possible that they were part of Kojima’s original artistic vision, it seems unlikely that he would miss the opportunity to also include some sort of kidney-stone based status effect to go with them. This is the notorious, attention-to-detail obsessed Kojima we’re talking about, after all. 

(Image property of Kojima Productions and 505 Games)

Pesumably, the main reason for their inclusion was as a way of securing funding for Kojima’s first post-Konami project so, despite the inherent weirdness of it all, I can’t begrudge the man his Monster. In case the concept of real life energy drinks in your dead mother delivery simulator is offensive to you though, you might be interested in the Director’s Cut of Death Stranding. Released in 2021, the Director’s Cut does away with the Monster in favour of a more generic, fictionalised alternative.  

I can only assume that this was an act of bold creative control on the part of the auteur genius, Kojima, to deliver a definitive version of his latest game for his true fans without the tainting of corporate sponsorships. Either that or the brand deal with Monster just expired after the first release. Now that I think about it, it’s probably just that one.

Uncharted 3 - Subway Sandwiches

The Uncharted series has become a staple franchise in Sony’s stable of PlayStation exclusives. When thinking about the series, many PlayStation owners undoubtedly have fond memories of some of the iconic moments and scenes from the action-packed, blockbuster games. However, in amongst those swashbuckling, adrenaline thumping memories might also be that really weird sponsorship with Subway sandwiches.

(Image property of Naughty Dog and Sony Computer Entertainment)

If you cast your mind back to 2011, when Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was due to release, Sony joined with a very strange bedfellow to help market their new game. Partnering with Subway, players could get early access and exclusive in-game items for entering codes that they received with purchases at everyone’s favourite anaemic sandwich providers.

Players lucky enough to access this early promotion could play against one another in the online multiplayer, adorned in shirts bearing the Subway logo, before anyone else. From Subway’s perspective, I guess there was no such thing as bad publicity as players fired automatic rifles at one another’s chests and, by extension, the Subway logos printed on them.

(Image property of Naughty Dog, Sony Computer Entertainment and Subway)

What really throws me with this one, more-so than Death Stranding’s Monster Energy cans, is the sheer incongruity of it all. A series of adventure games where the main characters have to regularly complete incredible acrobatic challenges and maintain near-superhuman levels of physical fitness being sponsored by an illustriously underwhelming fast food chain feels more like a latter-years Simpsons gag than an actual sales strategy.  Then again, I’ve never marketed a game that’s sold over 6 million copies and I haven’t been to a Subway in over ten years, so what the hell do I know?

Perhaps the real irony of this is that the Subway campaign, while bizarre, was of benefit to the players who took part as well. After the Subway early access period ended, players could carry over their progress into Uncharted 3’s full-release multiplayer mode. By contrast, when Naughty Dog’s open beta ended in July of 2011, there was a widespread problem where many players’ progress was reset, meaning that the Subway promotion was, technically, the superior way to experience Uncharted 3’s multiplayer in early access. 

(Image property of Naughty Dog and Sony Computer Entertainment)

I guess sometimes everyone does win in the bizarro backwards world of corporate synergy. Just as long as you didn’t actually eat the food that came with your early access code.

Persona 5 - HMV

There are many elements of Persona 5’s world that could very easily be considered odd to outsiders. Teenagers fighting crimes through the power or a shadowy spirit world, to name one, or the fact that most of them choose to do it in skin-tight leather outfits, for another. As a result, you’d probably be surprised to learn that one of the most jarring elements that I noticed during my time with the game wasn’t, in fact, anything to do with the premise. Rather, it was the presence of a humble film and music shop called HMV.

(Image property of P-Studio and Atlus)

You see, I’ve lived my whole life in the UK, where HMV, short for ‘His Master’s Voice’, originated. However, despite this, there aren’t many HMVs left in the wild anymore. They’re one of those companies that goes bankrupt every ten years or so to the point where, unless there’s one in your local town, you sort of just forget they still exist.

(Image property of P-Studio and Atlus)

Thus, imagine my surprise when I first picked up Persona 5, to see one on a street corner in my new fantasy JRPG. Well, it turns out that HMV is under different ownership in Japan and, rather than intermittently going out of business, they are actually wildly popular. I can’t help but feel like the western HMV brand should’ve tried that trick themselves, honestly. In fact, the specific HMV in Persona 5 is actually based on a real branch in Shibuya, Tokyo, where the game is set.

(Image property of P-Studio and Atlus)

As a result, it might be fair to say that HMV isn’t that weird of a product placement, seeing as it is a popular brand in Japan and Persona is a Japanese game. However, to that logic, I’d like to counter with two points. Firstly, the placement is still there for the West, meaning the game is still advertising for a brand that has spent the last twenty years running laps around the ninth circle of financial hell which is, honestly, still weird. And secondly, any product placement that causes me to search up the last two decades of financial records for the Japanese branch of an already obscure brand is definitely more baffling than advertising to my mind!

Yakuza 6 - Sony phones

As I’ve alluded to already, product placements in our media are something that we, as a society, have just come to accept. Companies can put their products in games and we, as players, can always choose to ignore them. It’s an unspoken, gentlemen’s agreement of sorts. That hasn’t stopped companies from trying to blur that boundary though. A prime example of this can be seen nice and blatantly with Yakuza 6, and more specifically, the way the game handles its pause menu. 

(Image property of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega)

Lots of modern open world games opt for a realistic approach for their pause menus. Usually, they like to present it as if it was the main character’s mobile phone screen. It’s a nice idea. Just so long as you ignore the blatant SAVE and LOAD icons on the screen, this is a pretty reasonable way to maintain players’ immersion in the world of the game. It’s a smart trick that, unfortunately, could be completely ruined if, say, you tried slapping a real world company’s logo onto the phone of your fictional character. Thankfully, nobody does that… unless you worked on Yakuza 6.

(Image property of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega)

In Yakuza 6 you play as Kazuma Kiryu, the legendary Dragon of Dojima who is known for being both unstoppable with his fists and unstoppable on the karaoke machine. However, when players pause the game, they are reminded that, no matter how unique Kiryu is, he still uses a very ordinary Sony smartphone, made clear through the enormous Sony logo at the bottom of the screen every time you pull your phone out.

(Image property of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega)

Now, is this offensive? Obviously not. Sony had a big hand in funding many of the Yakuza games being released in the West and clearly the developers wanted to honour their efforts. That being said though, out of all of the possible opportunities for Sony branding, this definitely feels like one of the stranger options. For the whole game, the enormous Sony logo continually glares at you from the bottom of your pause menu while you try to go about your day-to-day yakuza-ing. It’s as if Sony’s marketing team are looking over your shoulder throughout the game, like a pushy parent, just subtly nudging you to remind you who really cashes the cheques around here.

Mario Kart 8 - Mercedes Benz

Speaking of the people who are really cashing the cheques… While difficult to imagine nowadays, the mid-2010s were not kind to grandpa Nintendo. The now famous pay cut taken by President Satoru Iwata was just one symptom of a company-wide financial plague caused by the continued failure of the Wii U. By May 2014, Nintendo needed the newly-released Mario Kart 8 to be not just a success, but a cash-cow big enough to keep the whole company afloat.

(Image property of Nintendo)

It was due to these dire circumstances that Nintendo made a highly unexpected move. To plug a hole in their leaking finances, they accepted a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to put Mercedes branded cars into Mario Kart to a resounding “wtf” from audiences everywhere.

While, to be fair, this did make sense financially, this product placement was and continues to be one of the strangest things the games industry has ever vomited up. Ignoring for a second that Mario Kart is about driving wacky karts and motorbikes and not your uncle’s luxury sedan, even a decade later it is still truly bizarre to see the cutesy, cartoonish cast of Mario Kart drifting around corners in realistic-looking 4x4s.

(Image property of Nintendo)

In fairness, the cars have been shrunk down to go-kart size but the visual of the iconic Mario ‘M’ alongside the real-life Mercedes logo still carries a paradoxically weird aura. If anything, the fact that this was a deal exclusive to Mercedes makes it all the stranger. Perhaps if there were a number of different brands in the game, it would be less jarring but, as it stands, it just looks like Mario, Yoshi and friends have an uncharacteristically strong personal bias for one singular brand of German family car.

This frankensteined-esque brand synergy was the brainchild of the Mercedes-Benz marketing team who wanted to sell more cars to men in their thirties who might be starting families. Pretty normal right? But what does it have to do with Mario Kart? Well, their logic was that, by putting a sponsorship in a Nintendo game, they could appeal to the ageing demographic of men who loved Mario in the 80s and 90s and who would still be playing Mario Kart, even if it was on the Wii U.

(Image property of Nintendo)

Now, I don’t claim to be a rabid Nintendo fan, so maybe I’m wrong, but I cannot imagine any human being consensually taking advice on vehicle ownership from a green dinosaur or his stereotypically Italian friend who routinely pushes him off cliffs for extra jumps. Regardless of the inherent madness on both sides though, the deal still went ahead and now, thanks to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch, we can still enjoy this truly baffling roster addition a full decade after release.  Thanks Nintendo, I guess.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed my breakdown of some of my favourite insane product placements in games and what makes them so weird. 

It’s easy to be down on product placements because, as shown here, some can be wildly distracting while others feel just plain cynical. However, for the most part, they are pretty harmless and they symbolise some of the efforts that have to be made to get our favourite games over the line, so I can’t complain too much.

This was a lot of fun to research and if you have any other examples, do let me know because I live for this kind of madness. Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Peace!

All images and property names referenced above belong to their respective rights holders and are utilised here for the purpose of criticism and review.