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In this article, Max discusses the trends of product placement in online gaming.
Product Placement and How it Consumes Modern Interactive Media
Product Placement and How it Consumes Modern Interactive Media
By: Maximilian Fitzgerald
By: Maximilian Fitzgerald
Product placement is a discreet form of advertising in which a company or manufacturer will pay to have their products included in a television program, film, or other form of media. It is impossible to navigate the vast world of entertainment without encountering this phenomenon — practically all shows, movies, and video games include it in some capacity.
A Frame from the Netflix TV series Stranger Things in which product placement is on full display
Since its rise in the late 1920s, product placement has been a wildly popular and successful tactic employed by advertisers, owed largely to its many advantages over traditional advertising. Forbes illustrates these advantages: “Brands are still fighting for screen time in the hopes of capturing consumer attention. Product placement is one of the most organic ways to grab that attention — and it's easier than most marketers think. People pay attention to their favorite TV shows and movies [...] By integrating products, brands can capture attention without distracting from the entertainment.” More than ever before, our society tends to emphasize convenience. Commercial breaks are frequently hounded as intrusive and annoying; meanwhile, almost nobody complains about product placement because it does nothing to obstruct consumption. As a viewer continues to see the same brands present in their favorite shows and movies, it passively builds a sense of trust and recognition. In many regards, it is the perfect way to advertise for the modern day.
The official banner for the 2025 collaboration between Fortnite and the animated sitcom The Simpsons
In the last half-decade, product placement has had a catastrophic impact on video games. This trend became apparent some years ago as the popular third-person shooter Fortnite began to grow out of control with its product placement. In 2018 and 2019 alone, Fortnite pushed out collaborations with film companies such as Marvel, franchises such as John Wick, musical acts including Marshmello, and even Jordan sneakers. A 2019 article from Polygon, a website dedicated to news regarding video games, states that “the biggest reasons to boot up Fortnite recently have been these interactive advertisements. Fortnite isn’t just a battle royale game with building mechanics: It’s also one of the most popular and effective ways to promote a product.” This Polygon article serves as a time capsule; the year is now 2026, and hindsight demonstrates that Fortnite never once put the brakes on shoving as many recognizable brands down players’ throats as possible. The game has since rolled out countless collaborations with an egregious multitude of TV shows, consumer products, musicians, and other video games. Essentially, Fortnite has completely forsaken its own identity in favor of product placement.
The over-the-top advertising prevalent in online video games seems to reflect the bizarre ‘metaverse’ craze that a number of CEOs and shareholders went through in the early 2020s. ‘Metaverse’ is a vague term used to describe a vast, interconnected digital world where users engage in social interactions, games, shopping, and even work; it is something like a secondary digital life. The metaverse was most prominently pushed by social media giants, including CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, but it was quickly adopted by gaming platforms, as well. The concept was met with doubt from the masses, best expressed in a 2023 Wired article: “To hear tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg or Satya Nadella talk about it, the metaverse is the future of the internet. Or it's a video game. Or maybe it's a deeply uncomfortable, worse version of Zoom? It's hard to say.” Despite the pushback, corporate leaders seemed to love it. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games (the company behind Fortnite), went on record in 2023 saying, “I think brand presence is a much healthier way for companies to get involved in the metaverse than advertising. Players hate it and they aren’t very engaged with that content [traditional advertising]--whereas, give them a drivable Ferrari or a cool shirt they can wear, and they love it.” Tim Sweeney’s view on this matter characterizes the entire push to integrate more brands into online games. This opinion was shared in some capacity by countless leaders in the gaming industry and, as such, many have followed the exact same path taken by Fortnite.
Even more egregious than Fortnite is the extremely popular gaming platform Roblox. If Fortnite is the harbinger, or the omen for things to come, then Roblox is judgement day itself. Roblox’s list of strange product placements and collaborations is too numerous to express in exquisite detail, but it is best summarized by the infamous Gucci Garden event, which took place in 2021. The event saw the opening of an ‘experience’ on the Roblox platform, where users could purchase digital accessories for their avatars modeled after real-world Gucci products. At the time, Roblox was a platform that catered primarily towards children and teenagers who ostensibly lacked the financial independence necessary to purchase real-world luxury clothing. Why, then, would the company bother building brand recognition amongst this demographic? The answer is the same as before: it was speculative investment in the metaverse. Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri said, “Who knows what the industry will look like in 10 years? [digital experiences] are not operations that bring a lot of business now, but they could be a source of business tomorrow.” Once again, it becomes apparent that cluttered product placement in games stems from business leaders who expected the general public to take the metaverse seriously. Gucci did not advertise to teenagers in an attempt to persuade them to purchase luxury clothing; Gucci advertised to teenagers in an attempt to mark their own territory in the glorious metaverse that has yet to amount to anything substantive.
An official screenshot of the 2021 Gucci Garden experience on Roblox
For most industry leaders over the last two years, the metaverse has largely fallen out of favor in pursuit of the newest craze, artificial intelligence, but the rampant product placement that the metaverse brought still persists. When Fortnite seems to have Hollywood’s entire back catalog available in its item shop and platforms like Roblox initiate bizarre collaborations with Gucci, Nicki Minaj, and even the fast food franchise Chipotle, it is not unreasonable to view the entire thing with a heavy heart. Instead of delivering unique, personable experiences to users, these platforms have chosen to become decentralized, messy conglomerates of countless brands-- all in an attempt to push the fallacious idea of a ‘metaverse’ into reality. Unfortunately, not much can be done to circumvent this. CEOs and shareholders very rarely listen to consumers.
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