8 Video Game Product Placements So Good We Bought In

3. Pepsi (Pepsiman)

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In 1983, Coca-Cola invited attendees at their annual conference to play an interesting but terribly ill-advised adaptation of Space Invaders, in which players had to defend the noble carbonated drink brand from the encroaching threat of the word 'PEPSI'. As anyone who has played Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade trailblazer will know, no matter how valiantly you fight, eventually, resistance will prove futile. In Pepsi Invaders, Pepsi would always win.

The rival company used that easy victory to inform how to license a video game of their own. 1999's Pepsiman didn't see the drinks manufacturer inevitably succumb to their market contenders, nor its instantly recognisable 'globe', clad in a pair of shades, surf on a bottle at sea. Rather, it was an on-rails platformer starring the superhero Pepsiman, following his unstoppable quest to not be killed by everything - including, oddly, Pepsi trucks.

This, bizarrely, was not Pepsiman's first video game appearance; the overhyped drinks peddler was one of the brawlers available in SEGA's 1995 arcade basher Fighting Vipers. It wasn't until the PS1 platformer that things really popped for Pepsiman though.

Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.