EmeraldJourney
Senior Member
Besides Club Penguin, the first example I could think of was the McDonald’s Video Game. As a kid I had no idea what was happening and all the paragraphs about how McDonald’s uses the tactics of manipulation and whatnot like an ordinary corporation does for profit flew past my head and I thought it was a normal game positively promoting McDonald’s(I may or may not have known it was unofficial, not sure). It didn’t help that the artstyle was cute and not unlike something you’d see in an actual McDonald’s flash game. Also, everything felt... uncanny. The title screen song, the cries of the employee whenever something was amiss, the sudden “DUN-DUN” sound effect and pop-up message when you did something to hurt the McDonald’s business, the business room with all the blabbering, the moans of the cows, the destruction of the rainforest, and, of course, the game over screen, featuring an angry Ronald McDonald. It was rather unnerving but it stuck in my mind, probably because of that.
A long time ago I did a playthrough of the game where my goal was to have McDonald’s survive one thousand years(the game starts at 2000 if I remember correctly), and I did it. There’s a screenshot of said accomplishment below. I can’t pinpoint the exact date of when I did this, but it seems to be late 2017.
And speaking of McDonald’s games, an honorable mention would be an OFFICIAL game from the Happy Meal website a decade ago. Does anyone remember Yummivore? The game was funny with the “CHOMP!” stock sound effect whenever you ate something and all the food flying everywhere, but I think the true centerpiece is the music video.
Hands down Runescape. I started playing at 14 years old and still play with membership on Runescape 2 and Runescape oldschool, I love oldschool and was around when all of the riots were happening over the changes being made on oldschool. Fun times and memories. My family still plays too and we play together sometimes.
