Even Link has an iPhone 3G: Silly product placement added to videogames

For its weekly Photoshop contest, tech blog Gizmodo decided to have people cram random gadgets into their favorite videogames. The result was Mario driving a Hummer and Segway riding Spartans. Take a look at the results page to see all the entries.

Although this contest was all in good fun, it got me wondering if such blatant product placement might become more problematic as time goes on. Heck, Metal Gear Solid 4 was chock full of it — with an iPod for Snake to listen to and several real-world food brands for him to eat. I may just be worrying for nothing, though, as the advertisers are apparently not evil, and surely wouldn’t dare to compromise our gaming experiences just to make a few bucks.

Yeah, right.