I chose that screenshot because it is blatant and you are naive if you think coke would allow a centre camera shot of their product without doing their sums. The same applies for Doritos, who probably paid slightly less for a bottom right shot.

I am not sure you understand how protective brands are of their identity and how much revenue it can generate for the film and the product.

If you tried to use these brands without permission you would be financially crucified.

And that aside, you could replace either of those products in that screenshot with products that don't even exist and it would not detract from the actual cinema.

He said directly below a post saying "It's when I see fakey products in something that is supposed to be primarily grounded in reality that my eyes roll and my immersion is broken. Those stand out like a sore thumb." :D

Of course you may see it the other way round, perfectly fair, but I'm with ReynardFox on this.

So there's a Pepsi fridge in a store and a guy is eating Doritos. So what? Those are real things and the movie is happening in the real world. It's not like the cinematography or the pacing are ever sacrificed for advertising (I don't think, it's been ages since I've seen the movie). Imagine if we applied such aversion to real brands to something else in, say, the Dirty Harry movies.

Harry: Well, we're not just gonna let you walk out of here.
Crook: Who'se we sucka?
Harry Callahan: [slowly drawing his .44 Magnum] Smiley and Westson... and me.

Doesn't quite work, does it?

I won't care if fits the world setting, doesn't look strange or out of place, and doesn't look like the real life example of the fake adverts in The Truman Show.


The Kit Kat candy bar vending machines in Theme Hospital are fine. Every hospital that I've been to has a coffee bar that sells junk food in addition to coffee. A candy vending machine wouldn't be out of place. You can see them the first two screen shots on the game's GOG store page.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/theme_hospital


On the other hand, there's the Final Fantasy 15 Cup Noodles....

It would be bad enough if it was just the fact that there's a whole truck full of them, complete with a vendor that will sell cup noodles to your character.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/e/e7/Nissin-Cup-Noodles-FFXV.png

It continues with your party member Gladiolus being the biggest Cup Noddle fan everywhere to the extent that Cup Noodles really needs to hire him as their official spokesperson. He even gives you a cup noodles quest to achieve the Perfect Cup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9PN8pzSn2Q

Also if you pick to take the cup noodle picture with you, you'll even see cup noodles in the ending.

Spoiler Warning: FF15 Ending (contains Cup Noodles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSLqSFAxp8U

It's entirely up to you if you want to watch Taxi Driver again, whilst it is a good film in its own right I chose it as an example for product placement because it reeks of it. Twice now: try watching it again.

Anyway, much as I would love to talk about the Dirty Harry movies, it would not be for product placement reasons. The 44 you mention is a prop in that film, not to be confused with product placement. You will notice that no such mention is given to any of the handguns mentioned in taxi driver for example.

All I am trying to say here is that there is a huge difference between a legitimate prop (hopefully Reynard will agree) and a bullshit product placement. I believe the technical definition may come down to money changing hands.

I will leave you with another screenshot from Carpenters They live.

If we're talking about IRL brands, it depends on how it's put in and what type of media it is.

Most of the time, it's not that bad if it's subtle like in the background such that you never notice. But if there's a clear prolonged and/or repetitive shots of the product as the subject or there's a dialogue explicitly highlighting it, then it is quite obvious that it's an ad and quite immersion breaking.

Of course, I prefer them not to be in my media at all because it hypercommercializes art. Catventurer's example of that ramen brand inside FF15 is very inorganic and disjointed. There is no way ramen noodles would be a significant part of the story in a low fantasy world involving kingdoms, magic, pocket dimension weapons,

With respect to simulators, I guess this is where native advertising makes sense because that's what the game is based on. For example, simulator games like PC Building Simulator and all the licensed sports games (eg: NHL, FIFA, NFL, NBA, PGA, etc.). This wouldn't bother me at all considering keeping track of made-up brands and name lexicons would be even more confusing - even though the whole game is effectively one giant advertisement.

Let's just hope gaming doesn't get sophisticated enough to become something as perverted as this - SEMI-NSFW.

I prefer original, in-game universe products, but am not really bothered when real ones are used.

Anyone played the "Colgate game"? I actually played this like 20-25 years ago and only remembered it recently. Funnily enough, there are actually a couple videos of it out there:

https://youtu.be/Kxuvh1ifnaA?si=P31Ui8fcJ1a3-Dnj&t=25

The funny thing is, if I played the game, this would likely be just a very bizarre bit of nonsense to me, since Cup Noodles brand does not exist over here, so I'm not sure I'd realise it's advertisment for a real product.

Also, as I don't follow the Final Fantasy games (I only really know them from Spoony's old reviews and playing a bit of FF7 myself)... since when is Final Fantasy set in the real world? Or at least one so close to ours? That seems very strange.

I dont like product placement, money will just degenerate final game then. It is like "timesavers" "skins" in assains creed games, it clearly degenerated ac origins/odyssey so they are unnecesary long and bloated and some base game skins looks "mehh"....

I like rather Rockstar Gta aproach , when they get ooportunity to actualy improving their games by makeing fun of that products, instead of boring product placement.

Lisen to gta radios, its lot of fun.

Cup Noodles is a real product here in the US - really cheap instant ramen in a polystyrene cup. It's really bizarre seeing it in any game that isn't a case of someone decided to make an instant ramen mod for The Sims... and only more so in a case like Final Fantasy 15 where you have a party member that is just going on and on about how great they are when you know that Cup Noodles isn't a quality food item that anyone goes out of their way to eat.

Sure, but when you're pandering to a degenerate otaku audience with absolutely no sense of taste, culture, or value in eating in food for pleasure...