Understanding the future of brands place in games | Playable Futures

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This series of Playable Futures articles considers how the design, technology, people, and theory of video games are informing and influencing the wider world. You can find all previous Playable Futures articles here.

The relationship that video games share with brands and advertising is a long-term one.Early examples such as Coca-Cola's boldly assertive Pepsi Invaders, or Johnson & Johnson's Tooth Protectors – both clones of Atari classics released in 1983 – wrestled with how to represent products and brands within the context of primitive visuals and limited technological muscle. After a rash of less than dazzling games made from the ground up for individual brands, in the 1990s – as games' influence seeped evermore into popular culture – more thoughtfully integrated product placements emerged. A scattering of versions of Sega's arcade icon Crazy Taxi, for example, made outlets like KFC restaurants and Levi's stores into mission goals.

Later still would come Flash games promoting the work of pop stars, the notion of live, updated billboards in game environments, and the complicated ascendance of ads as a means to monetise mobile games.

Surely then, the video game industry now knows its native ads and pop-ups from its banners and non-interruptive audio ads? We might not all have that lexicon at the front of our minds as we enact our work in games, but it's fair to say the conventions of brand promotion are now fairly familiar to the industry. Which, in turn, must mean that the future of ads in games is set. More of the same, right?

"Not anymore," says Greg Carroll, vice president of global revenue at Activision Blizzard Media. "A lot has shifted recently in terms of the relationship between games, brands and consumers, and brands' motivations with ads. COVID was a catalyst to people understanding how important and meaningful this entertainment platform is. Games were particularly important then, because games were a stimulant; not something to consume passively.

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