As a former Neopets kid you're totally right about the icky advertising thing lmao. Hell, Neopets in particular is the pioneer of what is known as "immersive advertising", or weaving in the ads to the game itself rather than keeping them separate. This should probably be illegal but 🤷♂️
Came here to say the exact same thing. Neo always faced some criticism for it, too, since they were a pioneer of this sketchy stuff. Another important component was that sponsored games were fast moneymakers in terms of Neopoints, so I was always like "yay, sponsored games!" or got excited over campaigns that would have cool prizes. A lot of former naive kids who are now Neo veterans agree "yeah, this was messed up" and have more of an anti-marketing stance.
what's interesting is that it WAS illegal (in the US). Reagan reversed the law in the 80's, and then suddenly shows like He-Man and GI-Joe sprung up just to sell toys
@Kaitlyn Ryan The problem wasn’t ads existing in the first place-it was the fact that they were part of the game. There wasn’t just a Crest banner ad at the top of the screen-there was the Crest Teeth Brushing Game!! There were branded items you could buy for your pets! This might sound less weird nowadays since it’s more common, but back then, Neopets was the first to popularize this kind of marketing and it was rightfully seen as screwed up.
@@Unicornmazda Obviously you don't, so why interact with this in the first place. This was the first case of this happening so it's not "just marketing" but a change of how to market with kids based sites that was really insidious. People in here are also just.. chatting about it in general, because there really isn't anything to be done about it just talking about it dude. No need to be weird and policing about it.
so many of the neopets sponsored games were literally just free money, and since they were pretty shameless about being more ad than game, i didn't mind them so much. a lot of them were insanely bare bones and you could make your 3*1000np a day super quickly. sponsored flash games walked so fashion fever could run.
@@maiiau me too! I would open the window, turn off my computer's external speaker and play the video in the background as I browsed the site to avoid any hint of being influenced by ads lol
I remember “daily” lists on Neopets websites that listed ALL of these games so I could make hella Neopoints. As an adult… holy shit that was predatory advertising lol
@@deerlyXO omg lol literally. like i was part way through typing my comment when i kinda realised just how uhhhh.... bat shit insane...... the amount of """""integrated""""" """interactive"""" advertising that neopets had that i just like, completely unquestionably ignored so i could get my free fake money. AMAZING.
I played so many of these games and knew the brands because of them- but living in New Zealand meant I never actually saw the real products as a child... Until i visited the US when I was 11, and the first thing I wanted to do was try all the snacks I'd seen through flash games. (I remember trying chips ahoy for the first time so clearly!) So perhaps i am an example of someone who was actually influenced by the games to some extent!
@@lisatroiani6119 yeah I think it 2022 a moshi monsters rewritten released and everyone has membership for free And every moshling that was unobtainable cuz of an event or a contest has a code now too
I played both Neopets *and* Webkinz, although Webkinz seemed more… wholesome? For some reason? Maybe it was because Neopets had so many more ads, but who knows. Maybe it was just Webkinz’s aesthetic that was more appealing to me :)
Webkinz had ads on the side of the game window, but it wasn’t intrusive to the game at all so they were easier to ignore. I agree it felt way more wholesome lol
I think describing Webkinz as more wholesome has a lot of merit to it. Neopets was a website initally made for adults and geared itself to big kids/preteens as it became a formal brand. Because of it's origin, there were some outdated references, and in retrospect, kind of offensive themes within the Neo-world. Stocks and Neo-lore also went hard whereas Webkinz was comparably a lot more sanitized.
i played both neopets and webkinz and loved them both but i feel like people are forgetting that webkinz was an advertisement for.... webkinz. the whole thing was very much HEY KIDS BUY MORE OF OUR TOYS
SAME, I tried to make my friends get into Milsberry but nobody would understand why it was appealing to me. It was literally my childhood, along with all the other flash games I used to play.
Fact: The reason why Flash shut down is because a lot of websites used this program for their login pages, and Flash is easy to hack, so people would basically steal data. Adobe shut Flash down for just that if you were wondering.
I'm not sure if it was flash or some other technology but the Promotional "Flash" game that stood out the most to me was Hotel 626. It was a horror game set in a fictional hotel where you had to go from room to room and do certain challenges in order to escape. There was one challenge where you had to sing a baby to sleep using a microphone, and another challenge where the game would call your real life phone number to give you instructions when running down a hall way. At the end, you just get Dorito's logo slapped in your face like a jumpscare almost. And you walk through a hallway of pictures of other players because this game takes a picture of you while you are playing. One of the most immersive scary games that has yet to be topped in my opinion. Too bad they closed it yeeears ago.
Oh my god. I saw Millsberry and immediately clicked, I played on that website a LOT, I've tried to bring it up when talking about 00's web browser sites like Neopets, but most people don't remember Millsberry........
I love how when you say a companies name or product your voice goes all robotic It’s like the perfect representation of what people running those companies probably feel like in their hearts when making this stuff
Knowing that my whole childhood of 2000s nostalgia, especially flash games, wasn't just a fever dream is always nice to know. I remember SO many of these!! The amount of unlocked memories from this channel is huge, and it's great! Surprised to not see Candystand (believe it was Wrigley branded) mentioned. I fondly remember how much time I wasted with friends on the computers during lunch in elementary school playing the monster truck games on that site! Anyway, love these vids, and all the cozy nostalgia they remind me of. Keep it up! :) (Also, Webkinz mains are top-tier 🤝)
millsberry led me to being a habbo teen in 2008 and i do not regret the experience. i think my favourite part of millsberry was the grocery shopping, but i knew i wasnt allowed to eat the cereals from the game.
Poptropica is the one I remember the most, I think McDonalds had a virtual world one too in the early 2010s. I used to play a lot of games on the Hasbro site too.
I think the McDonalds one was called "McWorld World" or something like that. I really loved it for some reason and made over 5 different accounts because I kept forgetting my own account info lol. I think this was around 2009 or something. I remember vividly realizing that the toys didn't com with a virtual code anymore and getting sad, even though it seemed like I was the only one online ever, lol.
These evolved into weird game apps and weird Roblox ad games targeting really young kids you can find Roblox "Metaverse" games advertising anything from Nickelodeon cartoons to Walmart to Fruit Loops to Dr Seuss books to Internationally successful K-Pop Girl Group Twice that debuted in 2015 and the youngest member(aka maknae) is 24 years old. What kids will have in common with Twice of all groups I have no clue JYP should've chosen a newer group that would've been more relatable with younger kids like ITZY but it wouldn't have made as much money I guess lol
Postopia was probably one of my earliest exposures to the internet (aside from maybe the Playhouse Disney website)! The brand games were always exciting to me simply because I thought it was so cool to play as mascots in situations you wouldn’t see on TV, though in hindsight, this kind of marketing definitely feels a little exploitative. 😂
I vaguely remember playing on Millsberry when I was like, 6-7 years old, but then it suddenly shut down and forgot all about it, until now. There was Barbiegirls, which was another virtual world site for Barbie. I played on that when I was, I think 8-9 years old too, until that also suddenly shut down and I forgot about it too. Then there was also Innerstar University, another virtual world site on American Girl. I remember getting a My American Girl doll to play on the site, when I was around, I think 9-10 years old too, until it suddenly shut down as well, and I forgot about it too.
God I was so upset when Millsberry died. I played that game so much in my childhood Edit: OH god I forgot about the pop tarts website. I remember that it had this like adventure game at one point where you had to find all of the pop tarts that were hiding and they became available to be found every couple of weeks, coinciding with like real-time commercials. I ended up forgetting about it so I missed out on some of the content and then couldn’t finish it because I was missing items that were no longer available…
I think I was the only child who ever gave a toss about any of these. I remember Angry Birds Seasons has a tie-in with Intel where they had Intel Core branded bonus stages, and I was absolutely obsessed with it. Then again, I was also obsessed with memoizing spec sheets for computers that were decades older than me, and the Wikipedia article for Macintosh is genuinely nostalgic, so a microprocessor themed Angry Birds game was right in my wheelhouse.
I remember having a vague memory of some type of Nickelodeon website themed MMO where you could visit the various worlds of Nickelodeon/buy themed furniture for a personal room? And I remember overloading the heck out of it with so much items and 4+ TVs, totally forget what its called though
it's definitely nicktropolis! describing virtual worlds from the recent past that are now lost media is a trip. this is just like when i try to describe to others that the channel mtv literally had a virtual world for a short time called vMTV - no one knows what i'm talking about lol
Poptropica still does as far as 2023 and you can still get little limited goodies on their advertiser rooms, like costumes related to the brand, with their cute "hey kids, this is an ad" om every ad room or ingame billboard.
I think honorable mention should go to Poptropica advertisements. Sometimes they had full worlds, sometimes it was a location in a world, and most of the times it was a billboard between areas. It was definitely a relic of the 2010s.
You're the first person I've seen to mention Nabisco World! I spent way too many hours playing Mini Mini Golf as a kid lol. I also have this super fuzzy yet specific memory of Axe body spray having a game, of all things. If I remember correctly, you played as a nerdy guy running around a house party collecting cans of Axe and wooing girls while avoiding angry Jocks. This was probably SUPER early in the 2000s and was more of a pop-up game on other websites rather than having you go to their own site to play it
I remeber Trix had had a virtual world of sorts and loved it. Got to create a rabbit avatar or something and had an interactive world. Never heard anyone talk about it though
The first time I ever noticed advertising in a game was on Neopets, it was some kind of maze game advertising Animal Crossing: Wild World and I remember thinking something felt super weird/off... BUT those games always earned you a butt ton of Neopoints so at some point I was seeking out the branded games more than the non-branded ones lmao
When I was a kid, several advertisement-games were some of my favorite pass times, the first one that comes to mind is a halloween game created by K-Mart where you got to explore a haunted house and get advertised halloween costumes 👌👌👌👌 I loved playing it every halloween in elementary. Another was Nesquik where I think it might have been a skateboarding game but I remember spending so much time collecting the Nesquik bottles.
I miss millsberry so much its unreal. I remember the day their website changed to a farewell banner. I am forever chasing the high that was millsberry.
This video reminded me of a Nesquik flash game I used to play where you played as the Nesquik rabbit who was on a skateboard and you had to click on all these obstacles in the way so he could get to the drink at the end, good times :)
i'm so glad someone is FINALLY talking about millsberry!!! no one ever remembers it but i have nothing but fond memories of it... i really wish someone would bring it back :'(
There was this game I used to play in primary school here in Australia, it wasn't really an advertisement so much as it was an educational game. It was about elections in Australia and how the back end functioned. A collection of minigames, really. I remember you'd go around launching parcels of vote cards at seas and it explained how overseas Australians would vote, as well as a game where you'd cross a front yard full of obstacles before having to explain to some guy how the elections work in order to get him to vote. I can't remember the name of it, and it's probably dead now. But I'd love to play it again.
My absolute FAVORITE collection of advertising flash games were the Nabisco cookie games. It was frequented by me almost as often as Webkinz. Ironically, the only game I remember the most is the mini golf, which I competitively played with my little brother
I never really played these games, I was more of a Cartoon Network flash games kid (when I could play them because we had dial-up and it took an hour an a half to load a game). And now I suddenly remember there was a DBZ flash game my friend was playing at the library once. I couldn't discern the exact goal of it, but it looked like it was (as the kids say) "fanny pack fun times" (I'm sure some kids say that. They might be the weird kids no one talks to, which makes me feel kinship with them).
One of the first computer "games" I ever played was a flash game that was found on a promotional CD handed out at some store in like 1999 before we have had a computer. As soon as we got a computer, there was a little while before getting internet or really even any software, but I was super excited about this CD because apparently it had a game on it. Well, it turned out to mostly have recipes and information about grills. I was like 4 years old and couldn't really even read, and as far as I can remember the game had a lot of text and I couldn't figure out how to play it. Somehow I still managed to have fun with it just from the sheer idea of playing a computer game.
I used to really love honeycombs as a kid and got into postopia hardcore. I really loved the monster fights and tried to get the codes to get more parts to use. No one ever knows what Im talking about when i mention it. The weird lips avatars too. I remember it so vividly and I'd still log in and collect codes if it was still a thing to this day honestly.
I REMEMBER PRIMARY GAMES! This channel has helped unlock so many buried memories. I definitely played a ton of Diego Smart and Beat the 3PM Slump, and I almost started crying when you showed that 3D Wonka maze with the lizard.
This, but with ShockWave. I remember playing a lot of games by a company called WildTangent. They made games for different companies I liked, mostly car brands and the later iteration of Nabisco World
I'm honestly shocked you didn't mention the Goldfish flash games! The Goldfish website was essentially styled to be like an entire social media platform, with the various Goldfish mascots having their own user pages where they interacted with one another. You could even make your own Goldfish character
Neopets flash games were my bread and butter as a kid and one of my favorite games on the site was a top-down Crazy Taxi clone designed to sell those old Firefly phones. I also distinctly remember getting Zac Efron's voice as Link from Hairspray burned into my ears from shameless tie-in personality quiz.
I would read websites for the “free dailies” for which games would get me the most Neopoints for the least effort. I hustled like no other at that age. And now I realize that free money was all advertising… they really played me when I thought I was playing them 😂
I was obsessed with Millsberry. And I did the exact same thing on Millsberry that I did in real life: check out all the books from the library and read them. I was a popular kid.
flash only got truly killed off in the last few years, and gen Z ends in roughly 2010. so the youngest are 13 and older ones are in their 20s (back to 1997 about) maybe you meant gen alpha? (currently kids, no adults/teens)
I'll never forget how disproportionate my sadness was when I couldn't play that one weird "pet"-caring game where you took care of a mouth. Just a mouth on legs. They would develop personalities and you could dress them up to fit those personalities. I played the mini-game where my pet mouth played basketball by slinging spitballs into a hoop with their tongue religiously. I think it was on Postopia, but I could be wrong. I only found a few screenshots of the game, but searching "weird mouth game postopia" led to pretty murky waters before finding it. Rest in Peace, checkered pair of lips on knock-off Converses - you're sorely missed.
Oh man, you just unlocked a dormant memory within me with Beetle Buggin', that is the only flash game advertisement I still remember playing when I was 12.
I’ve been trying to remember one of these brand-sponsored kid’s sites for years, and the thumbnail instantly sparked that it was millsberry! Thank you for uncovering a nagging memory for me!
Advert flash games were what introduced me to sites like addictinggames actually! One brand I religiously played that wasn't mentioned was Fandango's games. I always liked those dumb paper bag puppets lol. Eventually I'd go around and discover tv channel games (minus Cartoon Network and such) I can't really find any of the archived versions of what I used to play though.
I personally didn't play a lot of brand themed flash games growing up but I did play a LOT of games advertising movies and shows. Probably one of the earliest movie themed Flash game I remember being addicted to was this Chicken Little racing game that I found on Miniclip. I remember playing some sandwich making game for the Lilo and Stitch show, some Suite Life of Zach and Cody game and this platform jumper game for a cartoon I'd never heard of and can't remember the name of. I just found your channel and subscribed. Love these videos taking me back to the early 2000s.
When playing webkinz online for the longest time had different advertisement all the time on a long banner showing the webkinz pet of the month and other things beside webkinz
My fave promo game was a game based on a Sprint ad featuring cars from NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series that had these lights surround them that make them look like monsters, the game lets you play as those monster cars and let you drive and burnout in areas like an office building or a race track.
Man I used to spend wayyyy too long on postopia. I also remember my old main social media website foopets used to be sponsored by purina and nexgaurd (i believe? or maybe another brand of flea and tick meds) their branding was all over the store and it was literally a required part of having a pet on there, if you didnt use the nexgaurd fast enough your pet got fleas. the feeding animation featured a big bag of purina dog food. Tho around 2015ish until the end of the site they scrubbed all brand names off? im not sure why. Other than the site losing most of its audience and not being profitable. But I feel like then they'd just ignore it rather than request to be removed?
Oh my god the memories this brought back... I don't recognise most of these games since I'm an Aussie so I haven't even heard of half of these brands lol, but I played the HELL out of that Omaha steaks game. So much so that I permanently wedged in my brain a little "Yackitty snackitty...!" voice clip from when you feed one of the dads a burger, which I can still hear perfectly :'D I didn't even know it was a brand game! How the hell was I living in way off Adelaide supposed to know that Omaha Steaks was a real steak... restaurant? Grocery store brand? I still don't know!!
hi dream jelly, i just want to let you know that you’re one of my favorite channels on youtube right now :) i appreciate u and look forward to all of ur uploads!!
I love your channel, you’re so funny and your voice adds so much to everything you talk about. Keep up the good work, I’m so glad I found your channel!!!
would love to see you expand more specifically on the phenomena of world building online media and toy manufacturers in the 2000's (if you haven't already). You mentioned both Neopets in this video but I recall also Webkinz, Ty beanie babies, Littlest Petshop and quite a few others that hopped on that trend as well. I played all of them lol Also, toward the end of Postopia they did try to create a sort of community type thing but it was really lackluster. I vaguely recall some sort of point system to redeem for items to customize a virtual room and that's about all it haha anyways cool video!
Great videos! Love your content! I have some suggestions: 1. Reviewing the Humungous Entertainment games like Spy Fox 2. Addressing current mobile game ads and how ridiculous they are today in terms of closing them 3. Gameboy Advance games that were gems of their time. (Ie The Sims Bustin’ Out, The Urbz)
Another virtual world that was full of promotional games was Poptropica I remember there were like entire promotional islands with minigames and ads about the thing they were advertising
Man, how? I'm lucky if I can spend 30 minutes at Goodwill. I mostly just go to look for snowglobes and old cds. I find other stuff sometimes but not often.
@@Mskittenlover12 just gotta thoroughly look at everything, even things you dont think are your style. i never plan on buying any of the shoes or dresses but its nice to check them out and see what they couldve been for
Seeing that Fred Flinstone Postopia game put me right back to being in my uncle's room, using his computer while he was at work, getting poked in the leg by the weird feather down pillow he had in his chair....the memories
One of my favorite flash advergames is "Frusion Breakfast Brawl", it's an ad for a product by Dannon, and it's an amazing punch out clone where you beat up other breakfast foods lol
No one hates Neopets more than Neopets fans, you know? I played Neopets for 7 year straights when I was just 10 years old, so let me tell you something about those ad games... They were really shady, but damn it they worked. Even as a grown-ass adult, my choice of products tend to favour the ones I would have seen on Neopets.
As a former Neopets kid you're totally right about the icky advertising thing lmao. Hell, Neopets in particular is the pioneer of what is known as "immersive advertising", or weaving in the ads to the game itself rather than keeping them separate. This should probably be illegal but 🤷♂️
Like that fuckin McDonalds on the world map
Came here to say the exact same thing. Neo always faced some criticism for it, too, since they were a pioneer of this sketchy stuff.
Another important component was that sponsored games were fast moneymakers in terms of Neopoints, so I was always like "yay, sponsored games!" or got excited over campaigns that would have cool prizes.
A lot of former naive kids who are now Neo veterans agree "yeah, this was messed up" and have more of an anti-marketing stance.
what's interesting is that it WAS illegal (in the US). Reagan reversed the law in the 80's, and then suddenly shows like He-Man and GI-Joe sprung up just to sell toys
@Kaitlyn Ryan The problem wasn’t ads existing in the first place-it was the fact that they were part of the game. There wasn’t just a Crest banner ad at the top of the screen-there was the Crest Teeth Brushing Game!! There were branded items you could buy for your pets! This might sound less weird nowadays since it’s more common, but back then, Neopets was the first to popularize this kind of marketing and it was rightfully seen as screwed up.
@@Unicornmazda Obviously you don't, so why interact with this in the first place.
This was the first case of this happening so it's not "just marketing" but a change of how to market with kids based sites that was really insidious.
People in here are also just.. chatting about it in general, because there really isn't anything to be done about it just talking about it dude. No need to be weird and policing about it.
so many of the neopets sponsored games were literally just free money, and since they were pretty shameless about being more ad than game, i didn't mind them so much.
a lot of them were insanely bare bones and you could make your 3*1000np a day super quickly. sponsored flash games walked so fashion fever could run.
I still remember the "game" where you spun a wheel three times and watched three ads got 3*10kNP. All the "how to make money" guides recommended it.
@@maiiau me too! I would open the window, turn off my computer's external speaker and play the video in the background as I browsed the site to avoid any hint of being influenced by ads lol
I used to get super excited about the one's sponsored by shows/movies that I was excited about!! Even if there wasn't much to it
I remember “daily” lists on Neopets websites that listed ALL of these games so I could make hella Neopoints. As an adult… holy shit that was predatory advertising lol
@@deerlyXO omg lol literally. like i was part way through typing my comment when i kinda realised just how uhhhh.... bat shit insane...... the amount of """""integrated""""" """interactive"""" advertising that neopets had that i just like, completely unquestionably ignored so i could get my free fake money. AMAZING.
I played so many of these games and knew the brands because of them- but living in New Zealand meant I never actually saw the real products as a child... Until i visited the US when I was 11, and the first thing I wanted to do was try all the snacks I'd seen through flash games. (I remember trying chips ahoy for the first time so clearly!) So perhaps i am an example of someone who was actually influenced by the games to some extent!
Were the snacks as magical as you had hoped? 😂
@@gravesbroderick928 they were uhhh... Something 🥴
@@akafukuu
I just made a comment about this. If the product advertised turns out to not be good, the ads lose their influence on people.
I sunk hundreds of hours into the build a Bear virtual world as a kid. That and Moshi Monsters were my jam. Only real ones remember Moshi Monsters
i sunk so much fucking time into moshi monsters as a kid and recently fell back into that rabbithole cuz theres a moshi monsters rewritten now
@@TazKoltin there’s a WHAT
@@lisatroiani6119 yeah I think it 2022 a moshi monsters rewritten released and everyone has membership for free
And every moshling that was unobtainable cuz of an event or a contest has a code now too
YESSSS MOSHI MONSTERS AND THE VIRTUAL BUILD A BEAR WORLDDDD
I remember just never played
I played both Neopets *and* Webkinz, although Webkinz seemed more… wholesome? For some reason? Maybe it was because Neopets had so many more ads, but who knows. Maybe it was just Webkinz’s aesthetic that was more appealing to me :)
Webkinz had ads on the side of the game window, but it wasn’t intrusive to the game at all so they were easier to ignore. I agree it felt way more wholesome lol
I enjoyed both! I loved the unique neopets and the different webkinz animals
I think describing Webkinz as more wholesome has a lot of merit to it. Neopets was a website initally made for adults and geared itself to big kids/preteens as it became a formal brand. Because of it's origin, there were some outdated references, and in retrospect, kind of offensive themes within the Neo-world. Stocks and Neo-lore also went hard whereas Webkinz was comparably a lot more sanitized.
i played both neopets and webkinz and loved them both but i feel like people are forgetting that webkinz was an advertisement for.... webkinz. the whole thing was very much HEY KIDS BUY MORE OF OUR TOYS
I remember Millsberry so heavily. Nobody ever knows what I’m talking about but it was such an impressive website when it came out.
Same. My friends and I spent SO much time on that site
Literally I tried finding it years later and was so sad when it shut down. The baseball game was my favorite
I loved Millsberry!
I was obsessed with Millsberry
SAME, I tried to make my friends get into Milsberry but nobody would understand why it was appealing to me. It was literally my childhood, along with all the other flash games I used to play.
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I was binging her videos and this is just a blessing to my binge collection
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200 liker Cyberstar Entertainment!
I remember my mom banning Millsberry, Postopia, and Neopets from our house as a kid because she HATED how branded they were
Fact: The reason why Flash shut down is because a lot of websites used this program for their login pages, and Flash is easy to hack, so people would basically steal data. Adobe shut Flash down for just that if you were wondering.
I'm not sure if it was flash or some other technology but the Promotional "Flash" game that stood out the most to me was Hotel 626. It was a horror game set in a fictional hotel where you had to go from room to room and do certain challenges in order to escape. There was one challenge where you had to sing a baby to sleep using a microphone, and another challenge where the game would call your real life phone number to give you instructions when running down a hall way. At the end, you just get Dorito's logo slapped in your face like a jumpscare almost. And you walk through a hallway of pictures of other players because this game takes a picture of you while you are playing. One of the most immersive scary games that has yet to be topped in my opinion. Too bad they closed it yeeears ago.
I think some people mentioned it
God the Build a Bear games part brought back memories I forgot I had, especially the halloween one 😭
Oh my god. I saw Millsberry and immediately clicked, I played on that website a LOT, I've tried to bring it up when talking about 00's web browser sites like Neopets, but most people don't remember Millsberry........
The Chef Boyardi game could have been so much better as a "Papers, Please" kind of game, except it could be like "Pasta, Please".
I love how when you say a companies name or product your voice goes all robotic It’s like the perfect representation of what people running those companies probably feel like in their hearts when making this stuff
Knowing that my whole childhood of 2000s nostalgia, especially flash games, wasn't just a fever dream is always nice to know. I remember SO many of these!! The amount of unlocked memories from this channel is huge, and it's great! Surprised to not see Candystand (believe it was Wrigley branded) mentioned. I fondly remember how much time I wasted with friends on the computers during lunch in elementary school playing the monster truck games on that site!
Anyway, love these vids, and all the cozy nostalgia they remind me of. Keep it up! :) (Also, Webkinz mains are top-tier 🤝)
millsberry led me to being a habbo teen in 2008 and i do not regret the experience. i think my favourite part of millsberry was the grocery shopping, but i knew i wasnt allowed to eat the cereals from the game.
Poptropica is the one I remember the most, I think McDonalds had a virtual world one too in the early 2010s. I used to play a lot of games on the Hasbro site too.
Yes I loved poptrpica
I think the McDonalds one was called "McWorld World" or something like that. I really loved it for some reason and made over 5 different accounts because I kept forgetting my own account info lol. I think this was around 2009 or something. I remember vividly realizing that the toys didn't com with a virtual code anymore and getting sad, even though it seemed like I was the only one online ever, lol.
!! yep with poptropica they’d love to throw brands between moving areas or had a special building to get branded merch
These evolved into weird game apps and weird Roblox ad games targeting really young kids you can find Roblox "Metaverse" games advertising anything from Nickelodeon cartoons to Walmart to Fruit Loops to Dr Seuss books to Internationally successful K-Pop Girl Group Twice that debuted in 2015 and the youngest member(aka maknae) is 24 years old. What kids will have in common with Twice of all groups I have no clue JYP should've chosen a newer group that would've been more relatable with younger kids like ITZY but it wouldn't have made as much money I guess lol
Postopia was probably one of my earliest exposures to the internet (aside from maybe the Playhouse Disney website)!
The brand games were always exciting to me simply because I thought it was so cool to play as mascots in situations you wouldn’t see on TV, though in hindsight, this kind of marketing definitely feels a little exploitative. 😂
Creating new stories for the mascots of consumer products does seem fun.....
..I know people have written fanfics about Tony the Tiger for example.
I vaguely remember playing on Millsberry when I was like, 6-7 years old, but then it suddenly shut down and forgot all about it, until now. There was Barbiegirls, which was another virtual world site for Barbie. I played on that when I was, I think 8-9 years old too, until that also suddenly shut down and I forgot about it too. Then there was also Innerstar University, another virtual world site on American Girl. I remember getting a My American Girl doll to play on the site, when I was around, I think 9-10 years old too, until it suddenly shut down as well, and I forgot about it too.
God I was so upset when Millsberry died. I played that game so much in my childhood
Edit: OH god I forgot about the pop tarts website. I remember that it had this like adventure game at one point where you had to find all of the pop tarts that were hiding and they became available to be found every couple of weeks, coinciding with like real-time commercials. I ended up forgetting about it so I missed out on some of the content and then couldn’t finish it because I was missing items that were no longer available…
I love these videos. Its such a trip having things from the early 2000's brought back into fruition. Love your content, keep up the good work
I think I was the only child who ever gave a toss about any of these. I remember Angry Birds Seasons has a tie-in with Intel where they had Intel Core branded bonus stages, and I was absolutely obsessed with it. Then again, I was also obsessed with memoizing spec sheets for computers that were decades older than me, and the Wikipedia article for Macintosh is genuinely nostalgic, so a microprocessor themed Angry Birds game was right in my wheelhouse.
I remember having a vague memory of some type of Nickelodeon website themed MMO where you could visit the various worlds of Nickelodeon/buy themed furniture for a personal room? And I remember overloading the heck out of it with so much items and 4+ TVs, totally forget what its called though
NICKTROPOLIS!!!!! I used to spend my whole afternoons on it
Sounds like you might be thinking of Cartoon Network's "C-Toons," they definitely had the personal room/furniture collecting aspect on their site.
it's definitely nicktropolis! describing virtual worlds from the recent past that are now lost media is a trip. this is just like when i try to describe to others that the channel mtv literally had a virtual world for a short time called vMTV - no one knows what i'm talking about lol
Poptropica still does as far as 2023 and you can still get little limited goodies on their advertiser rooms, like costumes related to the brand, with their cute "hey kids, this is an ad" om every ad room or ingame billboard.
When the hop movie was out, webkinz had a special epet rabbit that you could adopt
My younger self is so jealous of the 2000's kids who got a free Webkinz pet.
This would've been good to fucking know wtf? 🙃
Nabisco and Candystand were my childhood.
Though I mostly liked the mini golf games. The course designs were really cool.
I think honorable mention should go to Poptropica advertisements. Sometimes they had full worlds, sometimes it was a location in a world, and most of the times it was a billboard between areas. It was definitely a relic of the 2010s.
You're the first person I've seen to mention Nabisco World! I spent way too many hours playing Mini Mini Golf as a kid lol. I also have this super fuzzy yet specific memory of Axe body spray having a game, of all things. If I remember correctly, you played as a nerdy guy running around a house party collecting cans of Axe and wooing girls while avoiding angry Jocks. This was probably SUPER early in the 2000s and was more of a pop-up game on other websites rather than having you go to their own site to play it
I love your content so much, it's so interesting to see how much I can relate to the topics you talk about, despite not being American.
I really love your channel. It gets me nostalgic for things I never really think about anymore
I remeber Trix had had a virtual world of sorts and loved it. Got to create a rabbit avatar or something and had an interactive world. Never heard anyone talk about it though
I miss Millsberry so much 😭 It was one of my biggest childhood obsessions.
The first time I ever noticed advertising in a game was on Neopets, it was some kind of maze game advertising Animal Crossing: Wild World and I remember thinking something felt super weird/off... BUT those games always earned you a butt ton of Neopoints so at some point I was seeking out the branded games more than the non-branded ones lmao
Millsbury was incredible, despite the advertisement. I always loved fishing and would get so sad when I fished up boots 😬😂
Thank you for reminding me what it was like to be a child in the late 90's and early 2000's
When I was a kid, several advertisement-games were some of my favorite pass times, the first one that comes to mind is a halloween game created by K-Mart where you got to explore a haunted house and get advertised halloween costumes 👌👌👌👌 I loved playing it every halloween in elementary. Another was Nesquik where I think it might have been a skateboarding game but I remember spending so much time collecting the Nesquik bottles.
Thanks for another juicy slice of content, Dream Jelly 🍮
I miss millsberry so much its unreal. I remember the day their website changed to a farewell banner. I am forever chasing the high that was millsberry.
This video reminded me of a Nesquik flash game I used to play where you played as the Nesquik rabbit who was on a skateboard and you had to click on all these obstacles in the way so he could get to the drink at the end, good times :)
Oh my god, you unlocked a locked memory with Millsberry.. I used that site a lot??? The UI is as familiar to me as my own hands.
i'm so glad someone is FINALLY talking about millsberry!!! no one ever remembers it but i have nothing but fond memories of it... i really wish someone would bring it back :'(
There was this game I used to play in primary school here in Australia, it wasn't really an advertisement so much as it was an educational game. It was about elections in Australia and how the back end functioned. A collection of minigames, really. I remember you'd go around launching parcels of vote cards at seas and it explained how overseas Australians would vote, as well as a game where you'd cross a front yard full of obstacles before having to explain to some guy how the elections work in order to get him to vote. I can't remember the name of it, and it's probably dead now. But I'd love to play it again.
My absolute FAVORITE collection of advertising flash games were the Nabisco cookie games. It was frequented by me almost as often as Webkinz. Ironically, the only game I remember the most is the mini golf, which I competitively played with my little brother
I never really played these games, I was more of a Cartoon Network flash games kid (when I could play them because we had dial-up and it took an hour an a half to load a game).
And now I suddenly remember there was a DBZ flash game my friend was playing at the library once. I couldn't discern the exact goal of it, but it looked like it was (as the kids say) "fanny pack fun times" (I'm sure some kids say that. They might be the weird kids no one talks to, which makes me feel kinship with them).
ive been waiting for someone to talk about millsberry!! seems like it was way more niche than i thought.
Man theres somthing so cozy about this channel. I just like to settle in with a video game and listen :)
RIP Flash Player - so many of my formative years were cool because of you
One of the first computer "games" I ever played was a flash game that was found on a promotional CD handed out at some store in like 1999 before we have had a computer. As soon as we got a computer, there was a little while before getting internet or really even any software, but I was super excited about this CD because apparently it had a game on it. Well, it turned out to mostly have recipes and information about grills. I was like 4 years old and couldn't really even read, and as far as I can remember the game had a lot of text and I couldn't figure out how to play it. Somehow I still managed to have fun with it just from the sheer idea of playing a computer game.
I used to really love honeycombs as a kid and got into postopia hardcore. I really loved the monster fights and tried to get the codes to get more parts to use. No one ever knows what Im talking about when i mention it. The weird lips avatars too. I remember it so vividly and I'd still log in and collect codes if it was still a thing to this day honestly.
Advertising your own videos in a video about advertising through entertaining media. Well done Ms. Jelly.
I REMEMBER PRIMARY GAMES! This channel has helped unlock so many buried memories. I definitely played a ton of Diego Smart and Beat the 3PM Slump, and I almost started crying when you showed that 3D Wonka maze with the lizard.
This, but with ShockWave. I remember playing a lot of games by a company called WildTangent. They made games for different companies I liked, mostly car brands and the later iteration of Nabisco World
Holy crap I'm early - I've been bingeing your videos and I'm so glad you uploaded!
I'm honestly shocked you didn't mention the Goldfish flash games! The Goldfish website was essentially styled to be like an entire social media platform, with the various Goldfish mascots having their own user pages where they interacted with one another. You could even make your own Goldfish character
Neopets flash games were my bread and butter as a kid and one of my favorite games on the site was a top-down Crazy Taxi clone designed to sell those old Firefly phones. I also distinctly remember getting Zac Efron's voice as Link from Hairspray burned into my ears from shameless tie-in personality quiz.
i think this phenomena is the reason i get mad when mobile ads don't at least have a little demo to play
I was OBSESSED with Millsberry. It was like my first form of social media!
I would read websites for the “free dailies” for which games would get me the most Neopoints for the least effort. I hustled like no other at that age. And now I realize that free money was all advertising… they really played me when I thought I was playing them 😂
Cereal games (esp the BIg mouth and Millsberry ones) are something my inner child still craves
I love the animal crossing background music, but not as much as fanny pack fun times.
Thank you for gracing the asd/adhd millennial demographic with quite possibly the best videos on the internet
I love your videos SO much you deserve all the love in the world 😭❤️
I was obsessed with Millsberry. And I did the exact same thing on Millsberry that I did in real life: check out all the books from the library and read them. I was a popular kid.
Great video! The Neopets vs Webkinz Edward vs Jacob meme made me laugh. Fanny pack fun times 😎
After watching two of your videos I had to subscribe love the content brings back great memories keep it up
Gen Z will never know. The internet changed so much since Adobe Flash Player died and among other things.
flash only got truly killed off in the last few years, and gen Z ends in roughly 2010. so the youngest are 13 and older ones are in their 20s (back to 1997 about)
maybe you meant gen alpha? (currently kids, no adults/teens)
Most of gen z grew up on flash. I think you mean gen alpha
I'll never forget how disproportionate my sadness was when I couldn't play that one weird "pet"-caring game where you took care of a mouth. Just a mouth on legs. They would develop personalities and you could dress them up to fit those personalities. I played the mini-game where my pet mouth played basketball by slinging spitballs into a hoop with their tongue religiously. I think it was on Postopia, but I could be wrong. I only found a few screenshots of the game, but searching "weird mouth game postopia" led to pretty murky waters before finding it. Rest in Peace, checkered pair of lips on knock-off Converses - you're sorely missed.
Oh man, you just unlocked a dormant memory within me with Beetle Buggin', that is the only flash game advertisement I still remember playing when I was 12.
I’ve been trying to remember one of these brand-sponsored kid’s sites for years, and the thumbnail instantly sparked that it was millsberry! Thank you for uncovering a nagging memory for me!
I loved Millsberry lol, it was sad when they shut it down. Pretty cool how Neopets is still around though!
Advert flash games were what introduced me to sites like addictinggames actually! One brand I religiously played that wasn't mentioned was Fandango's games. I always liked those dumb paper bag puppets lol. Eventually I'd go around and discover tv channel games (minus Cartoon Network and such) I can't really find any of the archived versions of what I used to play though.
I personally didn't play a lot of brand themed flash games growing up but I did play a LOT of games advertising movies and shows.
Probably one of the earliest movie themed Flash game I remember being addicted to was this Chicken Little racing game that I found on Miniclip.
I remember playing some sandwich making game for the Lilo and Stitch show, some Suite Life of Zach and Cody game and this platform jumper game for a cartoon I'd never heard of and can't remember the name of.
I just found your channel and subscribed. Love these videos taking me back to the early 2000s.
Woah you're almost at 100k!!
Ok vid just came out guessing this has neopets and club penguin
When playing webkinz online for the longest time had different advertisement all the time on a long banner showing the webkinz pet of the month and other things beside webkinz
I’ve had a shit day at work. This is a nice thing to relax and decompress to. Your content is really great.
I remember Honey Nut Cheerios Flash game it was super weird
My fave promo game was a game based on a Sprint ad featuring cars from NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series that had these lights surround them that make them look like monsters, the game lets you play as those monster cars and let you drive and burnout in areas like an office building or a race track.
omg i'm so glad i've discovered your channel. thank you very much for your content 💜
Man I used to spend wayyyy too long on postopia.
I also remember my old main social media website foopets used to be sponsored by purina and nexgaurd (i believe? or maybe another brand of flea and tick meds) their branding was all over the store and it was literally a required part of having a pet on there, if you didnt use the nexgaurd fast enough your pet got fleas. the feeding animation featured a big bag of purina dog food. Tho around 2015ish until the end of the site they scrubbed all brand names off? im not sure why. Other than the site losing most of its audience and not being profitable. But I feel like then they'd just ignore it rather than request to be removed?
Oh my god the memories this brought back... I don't recognise most of these games since I'm an Aussie so I haven't even heard of half of these brands lol, but I played the HELL out of that Omaha steaks game. So much so that I permanently wedged in my brain a little "Yackitty snackitty...!" voice clip from when you feed one of the dads a burger, which I can still hear perfectly :'D I didn't even know it was a brand game! How the hell was I living in way off Adelaide supposed to know that Omaha Steaks was a real steak... restaurant? Grocery store brand? I still don't know!!
hi dream jelly, i just want to let you know that you’re one of my favorite channels on youtube right now :) i appreciate u and look forward to all of ur uploads!!
I love your channel, you’re so funny and your voice adds so much to everything you talk about. Keep up the good work, I’m so glad I found your channel!!!
The 2000’s equivalent of 80’s toy cartoons.
would love to see you expand more specifically on the phenomena of world building online media and toy manufacturers in the 2000's (if you haven't already). You mentioned both Neopets in this video but I recall also Webkinz, Ty beanie babies, Littlest Petshop and quite a few others that hopped on that trend as well. I played all of them lol
Also, toward the end of Postopia they did try to create a sort of community type thing but it was really lackluster. I vaguely recall some sort of point system to redeem for items to customize a virtual room and that's about all it haha
anyways cool video!
Great videos! Love your content! I have some suggestions:
1. Reviewing the Humungous Entertainment games like Spy Fox
2. Addressing current mobile game ads and how ridiculous they are today in terms of closing them
3. Gameboy Advance games that were gems of their time. (Ie The Sims Bustin’ Out, The Urbz)
This channel is so cool and nostalgic ❤
Another virtual world that was full of promotional games was Poptropica I remember there were like entire promotional islands with minigames and ads about the thing they were advertising
Yessss
Now do cereal CDs!
fanny pack fun times
NEW DREAM JELLY VIDEO OMG
Just got back from a surprisingly long trip to Goodwill (2 hours), so video timing was perfect
I love a good hours-long Goodwill shop, welcome back!
Man, how? I'm lucky if I can spend 30 minutes at Goodwill. I mostly just go to look for snowglobes and old cds. I find other stuff sometimes but not often.
@@Mskittenlover12 just gotta thoroughly look at everything, even things you dont think are your style. i never plan on buying any of the shoes or dresses but its nice to check them out and see what they couldve been for
MILLSBERRY WAS SO GOOD my cousin and I spent so long on it 😭
Seeing that Fred Flinstone Postopia game put me right back to being in my uncle's room, using his computer while he was at work, getting poked in the leg by the weird feather down pillow he had in his chair....the memories
Dang jelly became 1 of my favorite channels about nostalgia 👍✨
One of my favorite flash advergames is "Frusion Breakfast Brawl", it's an ad for a product by Dannon, and it's an amazing punch out clone where you beat up other breakfast foods lol
Isn’t there a reference to Mower Mayhem (4:57) or something similar in Gnomeo & Juliet?
I remeber the day that Millsbury shut down lol Soon after I started playing Club Penguin
When Diego Smart showed up I had a mini freak out. You ripped a memory out of the deepest depths
No one hates Neopets more than Neopets fans, you know? I played Neopets for 7 year straights when I was just 10 years old, so let me tell you something about those ad games... They were really shady, but damn it they worked. Even as a grown-ass adult, my choice of products tend to favour the ones I would have seen on Neopets.