Side-Quest 134. Brought to You By…

Hello and welcome to another Side-Quest episode of Talk This! It’s Dangerous to Podcast Alone! This week, we’re talking about product placement in video games. AKA the return of Cup Noodletis, baby.

As always, you can listen to our podcast basically anywhere you want. Check it out on Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotify, and Pandora (or head over to our episodes page for even more options). Or just listen below!

The Topic

From Death Stranding: the protagonist, in his personal room, looks over at the five cans of monster energy he has on his desk

What is product placement? Why is product placement? How does it manifest itself in video games? Is it a necessary evil for game development in this day and age? How have some games made use of product placement in ways both subtle and in-your-face?

The Actual Discussion

From FFXV Cup Noodle Ad: the protagonist of video game FFXV is wearing an oversized cup noodle container as a helmet and is surrounded by large silverware with different cup noodle ingredients impaled upon them

We talk about some of the bigger examples of product placement in the last few years and distinguish it from the “advergame” which used to be all the rage. We also attempt to define the difference between product placement and whatever Fortnite is doing. Of course, this features the return of Cup Noodletis – we missed you, king. But there are plenty of other examples to pull from as well.

Enjoy the episode! Tell us what you think in the comments or on social media. Make sure to check out last week’s episode and look forward to next week’s where we’re talking about Professor Layton and Returnal.

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