More Monster Energy and Omega Watches in Games Could Help Open a New Support Stream for Studios, Argues BioWare Vet

BioWare veteran Mark Darrah, who we recently saw put out a defence of Anthem, has also potentially found a solution for the issue of video game budgets reaching unsustainable levels that isn't just 'hope you have a hit live service game to keep paying everyone.' It's a solution taken from the film industry, which basically points to something game creators like Hideo Kojima were already doing, and argues that more creators should take note.

Spotted by Eurogamer, Darrah believes that game publishers and developers can help get their games made through product placement, just like the kind we saw in Kojima's Death Stranding with Monster Energy included as a consumable item.

Yes, it was later patched out in the Director's Cut and replaced with a generic brand from within the Death Stranding universe, but it was there at launch. It had sold five million copies well before the Director's Cut arrived. For a more recent example, you can look at 007 First Light and its inclusion of Omega Watches.

You can easily imagine how, in an ideal scenario, developers could sell product placement ahead of launch and negotiate post-launch payments on long-term goals. That's money that could help a team get a project over the finish line, and help them make the next game on top of copies sold.

"My understanding is the live-action Smurfs movie paid for itself entirely through product placement. So the movie was effectively made for $0 simply through the sale of product placement," Darrah said in the opening few minutes of the video, as a point that would set up the rest of his argument.

It's definitely a better idea than just hoping whatever live service effort a studio is making pulls through. At the very least Darrah believes it's something video game studios "should be considering because everything can't be a live service, as we've, I hope, proven pretty definitively over the last year and a half."

Darrah spent his career at BioWare, working on nearly every single one of its projects from the 1998 Baldur's Gate as a lead programmer and executive producer to its most recent major release, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, in a consulting role. In between, he worked as a project director on practically every BioWare title.

It's also worth noting that, beyond the examples mentioned, product placement in video games has existed for a long time. It's not necessarily a new idea, and it's something you see outside of the triple-A space.

All to say that Darrah knows a lot about what goes into making a game, and it's definitely an idea worth considering. Especially if the alternative is the kind of mass layoffs we've been seeing across the industry, continuing non-stop.

Now, will players like more product placement in their games? That's a different question altogether, and one that most players can probably answer for themselves. There are definitely loopholes to be found, like making a James Bond game where it's technically lore-accurate to include things like an Aston Martin. But that's obviously very niche, and there's still the big 'if' of whether game companies can sign deals that work in their favour, without damaging the look of their games. Games that would also have to be set in a version of the known world to some degree, to make the product placements work.

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