Classic advergames
Video games that brands made from 1983 to 2010: mail-in Atari cartridges, mascot platformers, a cereal-box shooter and Burger King's Xbox discs.
By year: 1983 3 · 1984 1 · 1989 1 · 1990 2 · 1992 3 · 1993 2 · 1994 1 · 1996 2 · 1998 1 · 1999 1 · 2001 1 · 2002 1 · 2004 1 · 2006 3 · 2007 1 · 2008 2 · 2010 1
This collection gathers the video games brands commissioned or licensed from 1983 to 2010, before social media and smartphones: arcade cabinets, console cartridges, PC discs and free downloads. Browser games of those years stay in the main library, with three exceptions: the cereal worlds Postopia and Millsberry, which people still look up by name, and North Kingdom's The Coke Zero Game, a live-action game for EURO 2008 completed 1.4 million times.
The oldest are three Atari 2600 cartridges from 1983 that were never sold in shops: Kool-Aid Man, Purina's Chase the Chuck Wagon and Johnson & Johnson's Tooth Protectors were posted to customers who sent in proofs of purchase. In Bally Midway's Tapper, an arcade cabinet built for bars, the player poured Budweiser. In the 1990s publishers licensed mascots for retail games: 7 Up's Cool Spot sold a million copies, Domino's took a share of wholesale sales of Yo! Noid, and McDonald's licensed its characters for three platformers. Chex Quest went into 5.7 million cereal boxes in 1996, and Pepsiman came out on PlayStation in Japan in 1999.
Then the brand game moved online and onto Xbox. The U.S. Army published America's Army itself to recruit and ran its official servers for 20 years. Burger King sold Sneak King, PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin' for $3.99 with a value meal in 2006; our article on the Burger King Xbox games tells the full story. Toyota's Yaris and Doritos' Dash of Destruction and Crash Course were free Xbox Live Arcade downloads; Crash Course, picked from fans' ideas in a Doritos contest, passed a million downloads in two weeks.
Nine are retail games that publishers made under licence around a brand's mascot. Few can still be bought or downloaded, so most pages say, with sources, where the game can be played today.
In the Journal: Advergames: what they are and a history from Tapper to Fortnite
The top 10
Pepsiman
Pepsi's Japanese mascot, a superhero built around the can, in an auto-running PlayStation game released only in Japan. Pepsi created him when it held 3% of Japan's soft-drink sales against Coca-Cola's 31%.
Moorhuhn
A 90-second shooting gallery of cartoon moorhens on a Scottish moor, made for Johnnie Walker promotions in German bars. As a free download it passed 10 million downloads by late 2000 and grew into a series of more than 30 games.
Cool Spot
7 Up's red dot from the Uncola adverts as a platform hero, collecting letters that spell UNCOLA. It sold a million copies; in 2023 Keurig Dr Pepper turned down a request to bring it back.
Crash Course
A free Xbox Live Arcade obstacle course picked from fans' ideas in a Doritos contest: a million downloads in two weeks, and 49% of those who saw the campaign's Xbox Live adverts went on to buy Doritos.
Tapper
A Bally Midway arcade cabinet for bars in which you pour Budweiser for four lanes of customers. It was re-themed as Root Beer Tapper because the original was seen as advertising alcohol to minors.
Millsberry
General Mills' browser town where children kept their avatar healthy with branded cereal: 767,000 young visitors a month, staying nearly 24 minutes a visit. It closed on 31 December 2010.
America's Army
A tactical shooter the U.S. Army built and published itself to recruit; 20% to 40% of new recruits had played it. Official servers ran for 20 years, until May 2022.
Sneak King
The King creeps up on hungry passers-by to hand them a burger unseen. Sold at Burger King for $3.99 with a value meal; with its two sister games it sold more than 3.2 million copies, by Burger King's count.
Chex Quest
A non-violent Doom conversion on a CD-ROM in 5.7 million boxes of Chex; Chex volume rose 295% above its usual base during the six-week promotion. The 2020 HD remake is free on Steam.
Avoid The Noid
A 1989 computer game of the Domino's adverts: carry a pizza up a high-rise within 30 minutes while dodging the Noids. It still runs in a browser at the Internet Archive.
All 27 games
Questions
What was the first advergame?
There is no settled answer. The oldest games in this collection are three 1983 Atari 2600 cartridges that brands posted to customers for proofs of purchase: Mattel's Kool-Aid Man, Purina's Chase the Chuck Wagon and Johnson & Johnson's Tooth Protectors. Budweiser's Tapper reached bars as an arcade cabinet in early 1984. Our history of advergames sets out the candidates, including an unfinished game for a 1978 Polo campaign.
Can you still play Chex Quest?
Yes, in remade form. Chex Quest HD, the 2020 remake from General Mills and Flight School Studio, is free on Steam, and a Switch version has sold for $4.99 since March 2022. The original 1996 disc image is preserved by the Internet Archive. The cereal-box promotion itself ran for about six weeks in 1996, and the original Chex Quest website is gone.
Why did Millsberry shut down?
General Mills closed Millsberry on 31 December 2010, after just over six years, and our research found no reason it gave in public. Club Penguin, a children's virtual world launched about 18 months after Millsberry, later overtook it. Millsberry averaged 767,000 young visitors a month, with visits of nearly 24 minutes, the deepest engagement the Rudd Center found among cereal-marketing sites. It was never re-released; screenshots, a 2004 TV advert and gameplay videos survive.
Why doesn't Pepsi use Pepsiman anymore?
Pepsiman was made for Pepsi's adverts in Japan, where in 1996 Pepsi held 3% of soft-drink sales against Coca-Cola's 31%. He appeared from 1996 until Pepsi retired him in 2003; we found no official statement on why the campaign ended. The PlayStation game came out only in Japan, in 1999, and has never been reissued on PlayStation Store, Steam or Switch.
Can you still play the Burger King Xbox games?
Only from the original discs. Sneak King, PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin' were never released digitally and run on an original Xbox or Xbox 360; PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin' are not on Xbox's backward-compatibility list. Burger King sold the discs for $3.99 with a value meal from 19 November to 24 December 2006; the full story is in the Journal.