Taste the Rainbow

Darkened Skye has, in my experience, the most prevalent in-game product placement of any game. It takes the real world item of Skittles and puts them into the game as the most important piece of the game.
Most games that use in-game product placement will make it a part of the background or a prop; Darkened Skye uses Skittles for many aspects of the game. In the beginning your health is shown by an orange circle with a white ‘s’. After completion of the first level you gain another circle, this time a red one, and speak with an old lady who calls them Skittles. They originally show your health, but later become your goal for each level and they are used in combination with the other colors to form magic spells. There are continuous references to the rainbow and magic, both synonymous with the Skittles image. The plot of the game is very simple: Skye, the main character, must go and get the rainbow back from the evil Necroth who has stolen the rainbow so he can keep all the Skittles to himself.
What does a game with this level of in-game product placement mean? Honestly, I can see this being both good and bad for this game in particular, and videogames in general. My main complaint is that the gamer is not informed they are paying for the lovechild of all the Skittles commercials from the 90’s. The box has no reference to Skittles anywhere and so you do not realize what you are buying. Obviously, there are games that let users down and cause them to regret buying the game, but Darkened Skye is nothing but deceptiveness. One site said that Skittles had commissioned the game, but I have not seen a lot of information from other sites confirming that. Would the sales of the game been drastically reduced had they been honest about the presence of Skittles? I definitely believe so; on pure principle people do not want to pay for an advertisement.
I mentioned that the addition of Skittles could possibly be a positive aspect for this game. This is purely because it is one of the only things that add to the game. This game is very weak on many levels and does not compete with many other games. The Skittles gives it some form of identity and uniqueness. The game continually pokes fun at itself and many other normal gaming conventions; it attempts to be funny and is occasionally successful. The game play is pretty rough and I read gets worse the farther you get into the game. My main point is that the Skittles may be the only interesting point that would cause one to even remember the game’s name. In conclusion, the game frustrated me and left me annoyed. I read many reviews that some people found the surprise addition of Skittles very amusing and an important part of their enjoyment in the game. If the game had been a good game, that felt completely finished and fun to play, maybe I would have felt the same. Since it did not have that feel to it, it came across as a feeble attempt to make a new kind of advertising and failed. If they decided to do this, they should have been done much better.