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Pac-Man
subdirectory_arrow_right 7 Up (Franchise)
2
Attachment In 1982, 7 Up licensed out Pac-Man for a commercial, depicting the game's yellow hero turning red like the 7 Up spot and consuming both 7 Up and its lemon and lime ingredients after being made thirsty by pizza. Mistakenly, the opening of the commercial depicts Pinky (or Speedy) as being orange and, as a result, identical to Clyde, as well as Pac-Man being misnamed "Pacman"; while the ending of the commercial shows Inky, two Blinkies, and a green ghost resembling Funky from Pac-Mania, which would not be released for another 5 years.
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!
subdirectory_arrow_right Pokémon Sword (Game), Pokémon Shield (Game)
1
Attachment When Pokémon Sword and Shield were announced, they inspired a slew of memes from British internet users who found humor in the influences their culture provided towards the games. One meme, made by Twitter user Callum O'Dwyer, depicts a PokéMart from Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! edited to show the logo of Greggs, a UK bakery chain. After the tweet proved viral, O'Dwyer reached out to Greggs to ask if the tweet was "worth a couple of [steak] bakes" as compensation for the free advertising. In response, Greggs gave him a £10 coupon and told him to "have a steak bake or three on us".
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 21, 2023
Company: Atari SA
4
Attachment In 2001, Infogrames Entertainment SA produced a corporate anthem entitled "Infogrames Rocks My World", which was used at industry events starting with E3 2001 as part of a heavy marketing push to promote their slate of IPs after a series of acquisitions throughout the 1990s. According to YouTuber Larry Bundy Jr. during a video researching the development and release controversies surrounding the game Driv3r, Infogrames' public relations division reportedly spent $50,000 creating the song, but due to the song being relentlessly mocked following its reveal, everyone involved with its production was reportedly fired. While Bundy also claimed that the song was first leaked to the Internet by a disgruntled Driv3r developer in 2004, the song was actually distributed by Infogrames to other gaming news outlets as part of digital press kits. The earliest known upload of the song appears to be by software developer Phil Bak to his personal website during or immediately after E3 2001 in May, and the earliest known surviving upload is through a 2001 IGN article covering Infogrames' Gamers' Day press event in August. The song was later uploaded to ZDNET in 2002 on a special article ranking it at #9 on a list of their Top 20 Corporate IT Anthems.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month November 21, 2023
Infogrames Entertainment SA's PR department - "Infogrames Rocks My World":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxEQOv2g0JA#t=1041

Larry Bundy Jr. video on Driv3r development and release controversies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxEQOv2g0JA

3000 AD forum post of the Phil Bak link to the song days after E3 2001:
https://www.3000ad.com/forum/topic/7001147-infogrames-e3-theme-song/

2001 IGN article and embedded link to the song:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/08/08/infogrames-state-of-the-union-at-gamers-day
https://pcmedia.ign.com/media/news/sound/infogrames.mp3

2002 ZDNET Top 20 IT Anthems archived article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20021004141104/http://www.zdnet.co.uk/specials/2002/it-anthems/
Death Stalker
1
Death Stalker contains a long hidden message in its code, which includes calls for hires, promotions for other games by the same developer and publisher, and perhaps most interestingly, a message from the writer about how he had been locked out of his car:

Hello, good evening & wellcome to Qualtan, or Death Stalker in official form!
Brought to you & (c) of course, by TAG computer games.
We at TAG have always wondered why you hackers don't do something contructive like writing games!
If you wan't to talk to us about this subject then ring HULL (0482) 215320 & have a chat.
( do this anyway if you like! we're also after graphic artists , games testers & designers. )
Watch out for 'Ninja Massacre' its beaut!!
Hope you liked '19 boot camp' we did!
Coming soon, Touchlight from Palace.
Hello to Rogue who are writing the CBM version , featuring the first ever 16 colour HW scroll!
More games from Codemasters later in the year!
I am currently stranded in the TAG office because my car is locked in the multi story car park !
, just thought you might be interested.
Thanks to PDS for the wonderfull Pd system, its wonderfull!
TAG - the worlds first vegetarian computer company.
We love Codemasters!
Especially Mark, Tim, Richard & David!
but is it TRUE or FALSE we ask?
Fact is often stranger than fiction! more so where computers are concerned!
Who was Paragon? Who are Tiertex? What is Artic ?
South Hunsley , Britains crappist school!
I know! theres loads more buffer left, but I've 20 miles to walk home!

[The original message contains no line breaks; they were added by The Cutting Room Floor for readability.]
Contact
subdirectory_arrow_right Earthbound (Franchise)
1
Attachment When Contact released its first teaser materials in Japan, some EarthBound fans believed the teasers to be for Mother 3, due to the presence of a doctor who strongly resembles Dr. Andonuts from EarthBound, drawn in a similar art style.
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 19, 2023
subdirectory_arrow_right THQ (Company)
1
Attachment At some point in the 2000s, a promo video was made by THQ and Toys R Us to encourage Toys R Us store owners to stock THQ video games. This tape opens with a strange, off-model rendition of SpongeBob not resembling any of his video game models and with notable details such as his pore locations, finger shape, and amount of fingers being completely off from Nickelodeon's style guide. The video also has imitation music not taken from either the SpongeBob SquarePants TV show nor any of its video games. Despite this, the video does use legitimate background art from the cartoon, and has voice work seemingly done by SpongeBob's voice actor Tom Kenny. While SpongeBob's model seems to be original, Patrick's model is taken from Nicktoons Unite!, sporting the distinctive face-long mouth and half-shut eyelids of his model used throughout the Nicktoons platformer game series. The complete promo video is not known to have been preserved.
Punch-Out!!
subdirectory_arrow_right Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (Game)
1
The NES Punch-Out!! theme was plagiarized from the Gillette razors "Look Sharp, Be Sharp" jingle, which was used as the opening theme song for the American sports program Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, best known for its boxing programming, in the 1950s.
Putt-Putt Joins the Parade
subdirectory_arrow_right 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (Platform)
2
One commercial for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer line of systems shows a Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System being thrown into a child's toy box, as to refer to the consoles as "baby toys". Ironically, the end of the B-roll in the commercial shows footage from Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, a game intended for a demographic of ages 3 to 8.
Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa
1
Attachment In four separate 1989 issues of Video Games & Computer Entertainment, the mail-in game order service Play It Again put up an advertisement featuring a list of games customers could order. Among these is a mysterious title, Yeah Yeah Beebiss 1, which is not the name of any one game - this title would reappear in a separate advert for FuncoLand, under the name "Yeah Beebiss 1". To add further mystery to this game, it was placed between W and X games alphabetically instead of with Y games. There are multiple theories on the status of Beebiss:

•Some believe that Beebiss is a baby-themed game like Baby Boomer, Rai Rai Kyonshis: Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibouken, or Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, given that "baby" sounds like "Beebiss" - with Rai Rai Kyonshis being considered the most likely candidate of the 3 for "Rai Rai"'s (A Japanese onomatopoeia associated with China) similarity to "Yeah Yeah", the game's release in 1989, and the presence of other import games on the listing. Rai Rai Kyonshis is generally the most accepted identity of the game.
•One theory proposes that the game was made as a copyright trap to catch which retailers are stealing game lists, something one of the founders of Play It Again confessed to doing, albeit without confirming if Beebiss was among those games.
•A rather strange theory proposes that the game was somehow related to exploring, possibly being Atlantis no Nazo's cancelled US release Super Pitfall II, named for Charles William Beebe, a famous explorer and naturalist
•Another theory suggests that the title was simply a bizarre, elaborate in-joke that both Play It Again and FuncoLand employees were in on.

The myth of Beebiss would inspire the game Yeah Yeah Beebiss II, developed by popular retro gaming YouTuber John Riggs and based on the aesthetic of Rai Rai Kyonshis.
Sonic Classic Collection
2
When Sonic Classic Collection was rated by the British Board of Film Classification, they rated three pieces of content not present in the final game:
•A trailer for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
•A "history of Sonic" documentary video
•An unknown item titled "GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE", which was most likely a video. However, all other non-interactive elements in the game such as the credits and aforementioned videos have a runtime, which GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE does not.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
subdirectory_arrow_right Wario Land 4 (Game), Wario (Franchise)
1
Attachment Upon the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, many Wario fans were disappointed and shocked to see that his moveset had a powerful farting attack, something that seemed unprecedented for the character to fans in the US. In Japan, Wario's association with toilet humor in promotional material dates back to Wario Land II at least. The marketing for Wario Land 4 is arguably when the gross-out humor could be considered most prominent, with the game having golden poop stickers included in its manual, and the official Japanese website going into immense detail on the size and shape of Wario's fecal matter:

"Hey! Stop it with the dirty jokes! Is something I should say!! However…since it’s a good question I’m going to answer it! Last night, I put down 10 plates of liver sauteed with leek, 10 crapes, 10 plates of rice curry. My morning poop was very yellow, it was a good color and a big one too! It almost touched the seat of the toilet! I know! The smell is a mix of tsukemono [pickled vegetables], raw eggs, carassius sushi. Try smelling it!"

Up until Brawl's release, Wario had not been associated with vulgar humor that much within actual games, and the only glimpses US audiences would've received of Wario's slobbish side in marketing would have been in animated commercials where he was animated to have saliva dripping out of his mouth (something that could be easily disregarded given that Nintendo used gross-out gags to market most of their titles in the US at the time, even for less edgy characters such as Kirby and Yoshi) and - by an extreme stretch - a subplot in WarioWare: Touched! revolving around Wario's bad oral hygiene. Following Brawl, farting would be cemented as one of Wario's signature abilities in a variety of Mario games.
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 16, 2023
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
subdirectory_arrow_right Cooking Mama: World Kitchen (Game), Majesco (Company), Cooking Mama (Collection)
2
When PETA released Cooking Mama Kills Animals, a satirical flash game parodying the Cooking Mama franchise, Mama series publisher Majesco responded with a press release condemning the game and stating that Mama, while not a vegetarian, supports humane treatment of animals:

"Mama wants people to know that World Kitchen includes 51 recipes from around the world, ranging from vegetarian fare like miso soup and rice cakes to international delicacies like ginger pork and octopus dumplings. "I would never put rat in my Ratatouille," said a feisty Mama while beating some eggs. "Like any accomplished cook, I create my recipes to appeal to a broad range of tastes and preferences. My only goal is to ensure you leave the table well fed." Cooking Mama World Kitchen includes more than 25 vegetarian-friendly recipes including delicious breakfast, dinner, dessert and snack options. And, while Mama is not a vegetarian, she fully supports the humane treatment of animals, particularly for her canine protege Max who makes his doggie debut in World Kitchen."
Science Papa
subdirectory_arrow_right Majesco (Company), Cooking Mama (Collection)
2
When Science Papa was announced by Activision, many journalists believed the game was trying to cash in on the success of Cooking Mama. When asked for a comment by Kotaku, Mama series publisher Majesco wrote an allegation writen in-character by Mama, stating Science Papa to be her ex-boyfriend:

"So you want some dirt on "Science Papa" to splash on your site? I'll shovel it. We dated briefly (when he had much better hair). And now he clearly wants a piece of the best-selling pie by associating himself with an incredibly successful, and I'll emphasize, happily married, woman. Frankly, he never appreciated my cooking and I grew weary of his tedious "experiments." You want real mind-bending science, go figure out how to make Toulouse Cassoulet for your next dinner party of 20 and let me know how it goes, Papa."
Kiss of War
2
Kiss of War has been criticized for its advertising campaign, which primarily focuses on sexualizing the female cast of the game and depicts gameplay that is nothing like in the actual game.
Like a Dragon: Ishin!
2
When actor Rahul Kohli's likeness was used as a trooper card in the 2023 remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin!, he expressed a feeling that there were notable differences in corresponding with Western and Eastern game studios. In an interview with Digital Trends, he was quoted as saying:

"I definitely saw a difference between working with Western and Eastern studios. Our correspondence with Sega and RGG was so involved and sweet. They really cared, and it felt so much more collaborative. Nothing specific, but when I've been involved in other things, it's like, 'Just do the voice, mate," and then you never hear about it again. I never expected to have the back and forth of RGG constantly checking in to ask, "Is Rahul happy with this? Does he like the artwork?" I never said no to any of it, but I'm sure if I had any type of gripe, they would have obliged, so I felt very welcome and involved."
Suikoden
1
In 1994, a promotional trailer was released showing an early build of Gensou Suikoden 1. Some notable differences are:

Interface:
• In Duels, your current HP are displayed as numbers, not as a bar.
• You don't see the HP of your enemy.
• The menu displaying your party's current HP during random encounters is different. It has a different frame (once, they show a fancy frame, and once a very plain one. Both are different from the final game). It also lacks the heart symbol in front of the HP.
• The number displaying the damage has a slightly different font.

Content:
• A duel with Barbarosa is shown.
• One monster is a color swap of the Strongarm. In the game, it has green skin, in this video, he looks human.
• Some monsters are shown which are not in the final build: a griffin, a soldier, minotaurs (?) and a knight.
• Enemies don't have an idle animation.
• Tengaar uses a spell which appears to not be in the final game.
• Some sprites are potentially different, but the video quality is low, so it's hard to discern.
• One random encounter uses a background with houses, which does not appear in the final game.
• A large number of characters have different portraits.
• It says there are 36 True Runes instead of 27 (Murayama himself said in one of the SRM interviews that they originally planned too make 36 but changed it to 27. It seems they decided on that pretty late in development.)
person Jom12 calendar_month November 6, 2023
Suikosource thread:
https://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=70&;t=14457&p=158333

Gensou Suikoden 1994 trailer shown at V-Jump Festival 94:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRfBKAkDCT0&;list=PPSV
Vib-Ribbon
2
Vib-Ribbon was conceived after Mercedes-Benz contacted Sony to make a game to market their A-Class car to a younger audience. After the A-Class car failed the elk test, the game was redesigned with a new character in place of the car.
2
Starting from Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, most games in the Yakuza franchise have featured destructible environmental objects, even extending to stores and businesses. However, real-life businesses like Yoshinoya that were put into the series have never been able to be destroyed in-game even when fictional stores are breakable. You also cannot enter a real-life store when in combat, and any aggroed enemies that chase after you will suddenly no longer want to fight you should you enter a real-life store in the game.
Zoop
1
Attachment Print adverts for Zoop give the pieces in the game their own names:

• The olive-shaped green piece is called "Ganggreenus"
• The martini-glass-shaped purple piece is called "Martinicocki"
• The boomerang-shaped blue piece is called "Infectococci"
• The baby's-dummy-shaped orange piece is called "Lockjawbacilli"
• The yellow splat-shaped piece, used as a power-up in the game, is called "Fungusamungus"
• A spiral-shaped piece, not present in the game but resembling the spring power-ups, is called "Mosquitick"

It should be noted that the splat and spring pieces are given different names in the game's manual: "Color Bomb" and "Bonus Spring" respectively.

The patterned square pieces from the Game Boy version of the game do not have names.
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 5, 2023
Metroid Prime: Federation Force
1
At E3 2015, Nintendo unveiled a new game as an event played during the Nintendo World Championships competition entitled "Blast Ball", with many in attendance noting the game's resemblance to Metroid Prime Hunters. Days later, during the 2015 Nintendo Digital Event, Blast Ball was announced to be part of a full-fledged Metroid Prime spin-off game entitled "Metroid Prime: Federation Force". The game received heavy critical and fan backlash upon its reveal, with common complaints including the choice to reveal a Metroid Prime spin-off title almost ten years after the last traditional Metroid Prime game and after a six-year gap from the similarly polarizing Metroid: Other M, the utilization of a chibi art style, and a seeming lack of Samus Aran or a single-player mode (Samus would later be revealed to be in the game as a side-character and single-player functionality was later confirmed during E3). The reveal trailer received a heavy dislike-to-like ratio on YouTube, having at least 87,000 dislikes and only 10,000 likes as of this writing. Furthermore, a Change.org petition to cancel the game received 7,500 signatures 24 hours after its creation, and received 24,108 signatures prior to its closure.

Nintendo acknowledged the negative pre-release reception of the game several times, but still defended the game overall, with Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Amie giving similar statements about trying to propel the Metroid series by challenging the traditional gameplay formats that came before it and made up the essence of the franchise. Fils-Amie also compared the fan reaction to the game's reveal to that of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which also received heavy criticism for its art style and gameplay compared to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The game's co-producer and Metroid Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe on the other hand had much more conflicting reactions, initially stating that he had expected the negative reception, but later remarking that he was quite surprised by the negative reception and criticized the heavy criticism against the game's graphics, but in both cases he still asked players to reserve their judgements until they played the game.

During the March 3, 2016 Nintendo Direct five months prior to the game's release, an entire segment of the Direct dedicated to the game was hosted by Tanabe, where he addressed fan criticism, explained the development history of the game, showed a more in-depth view of the story mode, and offered a glimpse of Samus' role in the game. Some people believed this segment of the Direct showed that Nintendo was doing "damage control" for the game after the criticism it received at its reveal. Fan reception did not improve, as shortly after the release of the Direct and a subsequent trailer, it started to receive thousands of dislikes like the reveal trailer, prompting Nintendo to disable the like/dislike ratio. Metroid Prime: Federation Force was noticeably absent during E3 2016, but would receive more coverage and trailers from Nintendo in the immediate weeks leading up to its release, where it ultimately received a mixed to average reception from critics and fans.
person aa1205 calendar_month November 4, 2023
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