| Table Of Contents | |
| Introduction | |
| Wimpy Restaurant | |
| Weetabix | |
| Ralph Lauren | |
| Johnson & Johnson | |
| Ralston Purina |
Introduction - Article
In-game advertising is a form of advertising where players are
shown adverts for real life products within the game they are playing.
These adverts can be really direct such as in mobile games with a freemium
model or far more subtle in the form of product placement.
Product placement is where a company pays a game developer to implement
their real life product into the game's world, in order to sell it to
their player base.
One series that's no stranger to product placement is the metal gear
series, in which characters are frequently seen riding triumph motorcycles
and making calls on Sony branded phones. There’s also a feature in Metal
Gear Solid 4 which allows you to play music through an Apple
Ipod.
In-game advertising is not the only way companies can advertise their
products to gamers. An advergame is a video game which has been developed
with the sole purpose of advertising a product or service. These types of
games are usually aimed at a younger audience as they are more susceptible
to subtle marketing. Below is a list of seven examples of these advergames
as well as the companies that made them.
Introduction - Wimpy Restaurant
Originally founded over 80 years ago in the American state of Indiana,
Wimpy is a multinational chain of casual dining restaurants, which at one
point in time had about 1,500 locations in several countries around the
world. Wimpy’s menu primarily consists of a large range of burgers and
fried food.
Since its peak wimpy has narrowed down their operations to only three
countries. Their main focus being South Africa which currently has around
460 locations, The UK which has less than 70 locations and a single
restaurant located in the capital city of Kuwait which has been open since
1970.
Introduction - Mr Wimpy: The Hamburger Game
Mr. Wimpy: The Hamburger Game is a single player platformer released in
1984 for the UK market and was available on the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum,
Oric Atmos & Commodore 64.
It was created by British game developer / publisher Ocean Software which
was most commonly known for creating movie and tv tie-in games.and is a
clone of the 1982 arcade game burger time Created by Japanese game
developer Data East.
Gameplay - Mr Wimpy: The Hamburger Game
The game consists of a vertical maze of platforms and ladders which the
player must navigate while avoiding their enemies which include a variety of
walking food items and a spoon named Sam collectively known as the kitchen
rebels.
You are tasked with creating four burgers by dropping their ingredients
onto a tray at the bottom of the maze. Walking over an ingredient will
cause it to fall onto the platform below, if another ingredient is on this
platform it will also fall one floor down. The burger is complete when all
four layers are assembled on the tray at the bottom.
After all four burgers have been assembled the level is complete, the
maze layout will change and the movement speed of the kitchen rebels will
increase.
You're not completely defenseless against the kitchen rebels as you have
the ability to spray pepper into their eyes to temporarily freeze them in
place. (limited to 3 times unless you pick up a bonus item). You can also
drop an ingredient onto a kitchen rebel causing them to return to their
starting position.
Apart from the almost identical gameplay from burger time there is a
small introduction level in which you must take a food tray from one side
of the screen, to the other to collect a burger ingredient while avoiding
moving manholes and a green alien which is referred to in the games manual
as Waldo the burger thief. My guess is this was an attempt to avoid
possible legal action from Burger Time’s developers.
Introduction - Weetabix
The Weetabix Food Company is a British breakfast cereal company which
produces a range of cereals such as alpen, ready brek and most importantly
Weetabix (the British version of the Australian / New Zealand cereal
weet-bix). A rounded rectangular shaped biscuit cereal made from 100%
whole grain.
The company estimates almost 3 billion weetabix are made per year.The
majority of which are manufactured in the small Northamptonshire town of
Burton Latimer and shipped to over 80 countries worldwide.
Introduction - The Neet Weet Gang
During the 1980’s weetabix created a group of mascots known as the neet
weet gang. A group of anthropomorphic weetabix wearing skinhead attire,
who declared war on what they described as Titchy breakfast cereals.
Titchy being an informal British adjective meaning very small.
The gang consisted of five members named Dunk, Bixie, Brains, Crunch
& Brian who would often use intimidating language to get their point
across, in one advert saying “if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make
it Neet Weet mate, OK!”
Throughout the 1980’s Weetabix featured the gang on just about any type
of merchandise imaginable including lunch boxes, aprons, watches and even
a video game.
Introduction - Weetabix versus the titchies
Weetabix Versus the titchies is a 1984 single player arcade shooter
developed by Romik Software for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Dragon
32/64 & ZX Spectrum. It was released solely for the UK market and was
heavily inspired by the insanely popular 1978 arcade game space
invaders
Gameplay - Weetabix versus the titchies
You take the role of the neet weet gang’s leader, Dunk who has to defend
the rest of the gang from the invading forces of Titchy
cereal.
In order to destroy a titchy invader, Dunk has to pick up and throw one
of the rockets placed on screen by the other members of the gang.
Beware that the titchies themselves are also armed with lightning bolts
that they will fire at you. These can either be avoided or neutralized
with the use of the neet weet force field. The force field is limited by
the amount of neet weet energy Dunk has left which is indicated by the bar
on the left hand side of the screen. If timed correctly no energy is
consumed however if a lightning bolt gets too close the shield will
automatically activate which will consume energy.
If you are able to destroy every Titchy on screen before running out of
energy you will progress onto the next level, where the titchies are
faster and more aggressive. If you are unable to do so, then the game is
over and your total score is displayed.
You are rewarded points based on the amount of Titches destroyed. The
number of points for each defeated enemy depends on your current level and
increases by a multiple of 10 each time. For example if playing on level 1
you will gain 10 points and on level 2 you will gain 20 points.
Introduction - Ralph Lauren
In 1967 while working for tie manufacturer Beau Brummell, 28 year old
Ralph Lauren managed to convince his employer to allow him to start his
own range of ties which he named polo due to his interest in
sports.
He managed to generate around $500,000 in sales during the first year
while reportedly working from a single drawer in an empire state building
showroom and delivering the products to retailers himself.
What started off as a single line of ties would eventually become what we
know today as the Ralph Lauren corporation which manufactures mid-range to
high end luxury fashion items, homeware and fragrances.
Introduction - Polo (Game)
In 1978, Ralph Lauren released two new fragrances one for men (called
Polo) and one for women (called Lauren) in collaboration with Warner
cosmetics, a Warner Bros subsidiary.
At the time Warner Bros owned the popular video game developer Atari and
commissioned them to create an advergame to help promote the launch of the
mens cologne. The game was going to be a digitized version of the
horseback sport polo which the mens cologne was named after.
The task of creating Polo fell onto Carol Shaw who had just been hired by
atari after graduating from the university of california, berkeley with a
masters degree in computer science.
The strong national museum of play recognises polo as the first video
game designed and programmed solely by a woman. It was planned to be
released for the Atari 2600 and was finished but for unknown reasons Ralph
Lauren never went through with the promotion.
However in 1996 Polo was released as part of the Stella gets a new brain
compilation CD-ROM, which featured games released for the atari 2600
starpath supercharger accessory.
Gameplay - Polo (Game)
Polo is a horseback ball game where players use wooden mallets to hit a
ball into their opponents goal. It dates back to the 6th century BC and is
considered to be one of the oldest known team sports in the world.
In Carol Shaw’s Polo, you have three minutes to hit the ball into your
opponent’s goal as many times as possible, scoring a point for each
successful goal. Each team’s score is displayed at the top of the screen
and will begin to flash when there is only 10 seconds remaining.
To keep the game interesting Carol Shaw planned on including a number of
different gameplay variants, which are summed up below.
- Number Of Players: Up to two players would’ve been able to play at a time. In a two player game, players would face each other. In a single player game the computer would control the right side team and would have adjusted their speed based on the scores, if it was ahead it would slow down but if it was behind it would speed up.
- Ball Speed: Two different ball speed settings, “Slow Ball” which was the default setting and “Fast Ball” where the ball travels at twice the speed and distance when hit.
- Goal Size: The ability to choose between either a small or large goal
- Ball Rebound: when enabled, the ball would bounce off all sides of the game field and an invisible wall would stop players leaving the boundaries.
- Ball Wraparound: when active the ball and players would be able to go through the game boundaries and end up on the opposite side of the play area, unless the ball was to go through the goal.
- Number of horses per team: The ability to have up to two horses per team. Each horse would’ve moved in unison and be limited to either side of the playing area. The front horse would’ve been locked into the opponent's side and the back horse would act like a goalie being locked to their team’s side.
Introduction - Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson is a multinational corporation which was founded in
1886 by Robert Wood Johnson and his two brothers, James and Edward. Based
in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States The company started out by
creating sterile surgical supplies such as sutures, absorbent cotton and
gauze as well as producing guides on how to use them.
Over the past 135 years, Johnson & Johnson has expanded dramatically
and currently has around 250 subsidiary companies operating in 60
different countries which sell their product in over 175 nations
worldwide.
In February 2020 they were one of only two US based companies to have a
prime credit rating of AAA, the other being Microsoft and reportedly
generated $82.6 billion in worldwide sales by the end of the year.
Introduction - Tooth Protectors
Tooth Protectors is a 1983 arcade catch ‘em game released solely in the
US for the Atari 2600. It was developed by Diversified Software
Development (DSD) and published by Camelot Corp.
Three of Johnson & Johnson’s products feature heavily on the
marketing for the game and are even advertised in the back of the games
instruction manual along with dental hygiene advice. These are Johnson
& Johnson dental floss, Reach toothbrushes and ACT fluoride
mouthwash.
I'm assuming the game was produced in order to increase sales as the only
way to get a copy was to send $9.95 along with evidence of three different
purchases of Johnson & Johnson products.
This offer was advertised as beginning on the 4th of july 1983 and ending
on the 31st of october that same year.
To keep production costs down the game came in a plain styrofoam box and
paper sleeve as opposed to the colourful and informative cardboard boxes
that were commonplace at the time.
Gameplay - Tooth Protectors
You play as the tooth protector’s whose job (as implied by their name) is
to protect some teeth from a snack attack. Points are gained by deflecting
little cubes dropped by the snack attackers. Allowing too many cubes to
get through will cause the teeth to decay and eventually fall out. If too
many teeth fall out the game will end
The red character at the top of the screen is the snack attacker.
Occasionally these attackers will swoop down and attempt to carry the
tooth protector off screen causing the player to lose a life.
There are a total of three tooth protectors available if all three are
captured by the snack attackers then the game will end. The number of
remaining tooth protectors is displayed in the top right of the
screen.
Aftering being hit by three cubes a tooth will start to blink indicating
it is decaying. In order to stop the tooth from falling out you must use
one of your clean ups. If there are none left or you fail to press the
button in time the tooth will fall out and after losing three teeth the
game will end.
If you are able to press the action button before a tooth is fully
decayed the toothbrush, dental floss and mouthwash will be used to fully
restore all teeth back to their original condition.
At the start of the game you have three clean ups and extras are awarded
for every 50,000 points gained. The amount of clean ups still available
are displayed on the top left of the screen.
At the top of the screen is a time bar which will slowly tick down, once
it runs out the current level will end and you will progress onto the next
level.
During a level you earn 100 points per deflected cube and can earn an
additional 1,000 points if one cube hits another. Bonus points are also
rewarded at the end of each level depending on how many teeth were lost.
10,000 points are rewarded if no teeth fell out, 5,000 if one fell out and
1,000 points if two fell out. Your total score is displayed at the bottom
of the screen.
Introduction - Ralston Purina
Ralston Purina is a now defunct american conglomerate company which was
founded 127 years ago by William H. Danforth. Originally operating under
the name purina mills, Danforth sold food for a variety of farm animals
often referring to them as “chow”.
The company went through several different developments over the years
with parts of the original company being sold off to organisations such as
british Petroleum and at one point even started producing breakfast
cereals.
Until in 2001 when it was acquired by food and drink manufacturer Nestle
and currently trades under the name Nestlé Purina PetCare and sells a
range of pet food and care products.
Introduction - Chase The Chuck Wagon
During the 1970’s and 80’s Purina ran an ad campaign to advertise their
“chuck wagon” dog food. The advertisements would often feature an unnamed
dog chasing a miniature chuckwagon featuring Purina's iconic red and white
checker pattern.
At some point during 1983 Purina approached american based game developer
Spectravision and commissioned a video game based around the
advertisements. Spectravision delegated this task to a single programmer
called Mike Schwartz who claims he was given just three days to complete
the project. In that very small window of time, Mike managed to create
Chase the chuck wagon, a very simple single player maze game for the Atari
2600
Similar to tooth protectors, the game was only available through mail
order. If you wanted a copy you had to send Purina $12.95 as well as proof
of purchase for a 25lb bag of dog food.
Overall the project was fairly unsuccessful only selling a limited number
of copies with any unsold copies reportedly being destroyed. Due to these
factors the game has become fairly rare and is sometimes referred to as
the holy grail of the Atari 2600 by collectors.
Gameplay - Chase The Chuck Wagon
Chase the chuck wagon’s gameplay is fairly primitive, you assume the role
of a dog named Chuckie who must navigate through a series of different
maze’s.
Each maze has a time limit of either 60 or 30 seconds depending on the
difficulty selected. The amount of time remaining at the end of a maze is
the number of points you earned and If you run out of time you will lose
one of your three lives.
Each level has its own dogcatcher who will chase chuckie around the maze.
If caught by the dog catcher you will lose a life.
An object (such as a bone or another dog) which bouncies uninterrupted
around the level is also present. If chuckie is hit by one of these
objects he will be temporarily frozen in place, which will impact his time
and leave him vulnerable to the dogcatcher.
If you manage to escape a maze you will be transported to the reward room
where you will have the opportunity to earn an extra 100 points by
catching a small dog dish which will fall from the sky. If you miss you
will simply move onto the next maze.
The game ends once all three lives have been depleted at which point your
final score will be displayed.
