10 Ridiculous Ways Adverts Were Built Into Video Games

4. Mario Kart And Mercedes-Benz

Mario Kart Mercedes-Benz
Nintendo

At this stage of existence, basically everyone on Earth has heard of or experienced Mario Kart in some way. It's a fun, light-hearted game series with not a single hint of realism in sight, full of crazy items like flying blue shells and gigantic sentient bullets.

So as you'd expect, the sight of a Mercedes-Benz vehicle racing down Rainbow Road felt extremely out of place.

Back in 2014, Nintendo announced that Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U would receive a trio of Mercedes-Benz cars in a free update: the Mercedes-Benz GLA; the W25 Silver Arrow; and the 300 SL Roadster. The game publisher also threw on a "Mercedes Cup" in honour of this partnership, wherein players could race against each other using the new cars.

These three karts didn't affect gameplay in any way - with the Mercedes branding merely a cosmetic addition - but the look of the vehicles themselves just didn't gel with Mario Kart 8's cartoony aesthetic, and it pulled you right out of the game (and reminded you you were staring at an advert) each time you saw one of them whoosh down the track.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!