City of Heroes

The Cola Crusader, Paragon City’s latest and greatest superhero, chills out in front of some vending machines in City of Heroes! I captured this screenshot using Paragon Chat, a chat client that allows players to create characters and explore the City of Heroes game world.

The Matrix Online

Guess what I found in The Matrix Online! This is another entry that wouldn’t have been possible without fans dedicating their time to preserve a game that shut down almost a decade ago. In this case, I used The Matrix Online Server Emulator, which allowed me to freely explore the game world and (eventually) find a soda machine in a random pawn shop. Click below to see my character, the enigmatic SodaPop, celebrating her discovery.

Read more

The Sims

Not long after The Sims launched, Maxis partnered with Pepsi to deliver this soda machine as free DLC. This entry wouldn’t have been possible without fan-driven efforts to preserve the Pepsi machine DLC and patch the game’s launcher for Windows 10. Thanks, everyone!

Bionic Commando

I’m not sure I have the timeline correct, but the 2009 version of Bionic Commando seems to have launched with Pepsi product placement, which later switched to a generic soda machine.

Perhaps a contract expired?