As I recall, Cup Noodle was similar in FF15. While the main characters all have some sort of preference on ingredients which seems positive at first, after the party finally reaches Altissia the group’s cook, Ignis, loses his sense of sight. Ignis then struggles to keep up, Noctis is overwhelmed with his responsibility, Gladio is mad at Noctis, and Prompto is just down. Cup Noodle is associated with one of the lowest points in the story because Noctis doesn’t cook very well.
ETA:
In the late '90s/early 2000s Square licensed Final Fantasy characters for promoting sodas multiple times, but Parasite Eve II straight-up had cans of Coca Cola as healing items as well as a branded puzzle item.
I definitely remember the really weird Cup Noodles quest in FFXV, but I didn’t remember the story behind it. Thanks for reminding me.
FFXV had a ton of other product placement too. I remember an entire side quest around obtaining a Vivienne Westwood gown. All the camping gear used was very conspicuously Coleman branded. I’m sure there was more product placement too — I seem to recall there being American Express ads, but maybe I’m misremembering.
The Yakuza series and spinoffs also have a ton of product placement too although much of it won’t be familiar outside of Japan. Don Quijote shops, vending machines with brand-name drinks, brand-name confections and snacks at convenience stores, Pizza-La billboards, Sega arcade centers with Sega arcade games, DARTSLIVE machines, tons of real-world alcoholic beverages (complete with breathless and detailed descriptions by the in-game bartenders), restaurants based on real-world locations, real-world celebrity cameos (some in character, some not), real-world JAV stars, and many other examples. I quite like it because it ups the “you’re in Japan” authenticity versus the clumsy suspension of disbelief-breaking examples in FFXV.
ETA
This is an example of product placement done right in my opinion.
I can get why so many physical releases don’t bother with an instruction manual anymore, but you’d think throwing in a printed advertisement would be a quick and harmless way to make decent money.
I was readily familiar with the strong ties 3D Lemmings had with Jelly Belly (of all things), but only recently did I learn that the original release included a sample of beans in the box – only the release was apparently much-delayed, meaning the samples were rather aged by the time they got to consumers.
(Why isn’t Sony re-releasing the classic Lemmings games? You’d think there’d be decent money to be made.)
Somehow it also eluded me until recently that Spot: The Cool Adventure for Game Boy was actually a reskinned version of the European McDonaldLand game. (It looked so intriguing when I was twee.) https://tcrf.net/Spot:_The_Cool_Adventure
maybe the biggest product placement is the most unseen ones. someone mentioned et: the game. but these days, there’s a ton of xmen, spiderman, barbie, etc. games. things get kind of blurry there
I think that the first time I remember straight up ads on billboards in a game is probably the original Wipeout. Before that of course there were mascot games that involved advertisement and product placement and things like that, but that is what I remember as the first straight up “here is an ad”
There’s a difference between a license game (which is not at all new or any more prevalent now) and product placement. A license game can certainly have product placement (Cool Spot was filled with 7 Up bottles, their ad slogan was everywhere, and you’re playing as a mascot), but something like an X-Men game could be more than just getting people to buy all our playsets and toys. That said, the history of games using the X-Men license is one of varying quality. TheSw1tcher/Matt McMuscles did an episode of “What Happened?” on X-Men Destiny, if you want to hear about when upper management treats a license as just a job to keep the lights on. His style of humor isn’t my favorite, but I learned some details about the game’s development from that video.
They did- they did a pixel-perfect port of Lemmings for the PSP. It was so good that I bought a PSP just to play it. Sales were very poor. It does not seem to be what kids want today.
It’s not hard to play it right now if you want to. You can find it prepackaged with DOSBox in a double-clickable package that runs on any modern system. Or play it right in your browser if you want:
