Power-up with some Dr. Pepper in your games

News website IndustryGamers brings word that Dr. Pepper has inked a deal with EA for the rights to bring its products into the EA catalogue, starting in 2010 with a presumed update to The Sims 3.

While at first glance this may seem like a unique relationship for the parties involved, the truth is games have already enjoyed a long and altogether inspired history with advertisers.  It’s a practice that seems to have transcended cultures and consoles, from Japanese Famicoms to European Amigas.  And much like Hollywood itself, more and more advertisers are finally starting to come around to the idea of the console as a legitimate entertainment platform – translation: a viable source of revenue.  Thus their stake in these perplexing little gizmos is growing larger and more evident as of late, as exemplified by EA and the good Dr. up there – a match sure to result in many a billboard and locker room vending machine in the next Madden.  Maybe even an announcer quip or two,

Michaels: “The Lions drop another one and Daunte Culpepper finds himself sacked again.”

Madden: “Dr. Pepper out there should really be giving a little more pop and sizzle.  BOOM!”

Michaels: “John didn’t you retire.”

Travel back in time however and product placement had yet to become so banal.  I still remember the free Pizza Hut coupon I unearthed Christmas morning while rummaging through the instruction booklet of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game.  Being from The City, I had never even tasted Pizza Hut nor had any reason to at that point (going to college in upstate New York would change all that) – and as such the free coupon meant very little to me or my spoiled taste buds.  But I still remember it, and for those in more pizza-deprived states like Kentucky or California, it must have been totally rad to eat like a Turtle while playing as one too.

The pizza / player crossover potential didn’t end with coupons, however.  It also brought about Capcom’s NES classic Yo! Noid, starring the woefully short-lived Domino’s Noid.  The standard issue yo-yo was your weapon of choice as you battled through pizza-hating thugs (the worst kind) on your way to… actually I have no idea.  It’s been nearly 20 years and I’ve still never figured out what the hell that game was about.  But I do know that pizza power-ups gave you back your health – a maxim I continue to live by to this very day.

But as much as we would like to take credit for it, Yo! Noid isn’t an American original.  Instead the game started life as a Japanese platformer starring a boy ninja with a bird, called Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru.  Strange as all this retrofitting may seem, it was not an uncommon practice at the time.  Our Super Mario Bros. 2 on NES was actually a re-skinned version of the Arabian Nights-inspired Doki Doki Panic – which in turn was a project commissioned by Japanese network giant Fuji Television as a means to promote its 1987 television schedule.

But apparently pizza wasn’t the only product placed on the Venn diagram of American gamers.  With the impending Dr. Pepper deal and the patronizing “Gamer Fuel” line from Mountain Dew in stores, it should come as no surprise that soft drinks have long been considered as much a staple of video game culture as their greasy cousin.  But whereas Dr. Pepper has just been anointed “most likely to do small cameos in EA games” by the Video Game Yearbook Committee, 7-Up was lucky enough to have been able to commission an entire game just for their beverage back when you could get away with that degree of absurdity, otherwise known as the early 90’s.

The resulting Cool Spot, based on 7-Up’s one-time mascot of the same name, charged players with scavenging a landscape of beachfront locales in pursuit of other crimson red “Spots,” with the distinguishing feature between the titular Cool Spot and plain Spot being sunglasses – evocative of both attitude and individuality.  An axiom of the 90’s if there ever was one.

With Dr. Pepper and 7-Up under the same roof these days, I wonder if the Dr Pepper Snapple Group is even aware of its old-school pedigree

While my time with Cool Spot was brief (I only managed to fumble through the first level once at an electronics store kiosk), I can’t help but imagine the potential if 7-Up had just waited a few more years until the “7-Up Yours” campaign hit airwaves –

You play as Orlando Jones desperately seeking a new gig out in Los Angeles.  You beat the game when you succeed in convincing network execs to give you your own cable talk show.  The sequel takes place two weeks later when your show is canceled.  Obstacles include dodging calls from your mom and a boss battle with Depression.

Hit me up, Dr Pepper Snapple Group.  We’ll talk.

Because with games undergoing this brief identity crisis as of late, becoming more akin to interactive movies than embracing some of their more lovably eccentric qualities, the current crop of advertising tactics aren’t nearly as inspired (some would argue blatant) as the aforementioned examples.  Increasingly, advertisers are relying on the same tried and true methods brought over from television and cinema.  So with creativity now beginning and ending with in-game billboards, where exactly is the promise in video game advertising?

I’ll explore that question more tomorrow when EA makes their official announcement regarding the Dr. Pepper partnership.

Updated: with follow up (Part II)