Advergames are videogames which in some way contains an advertisement for a product, service, or company. It has a long story in gaming, that surprising starts from its early ages of the 1980s.

Many of these games were skinned clones of arcade hits: Tooth Protectors (1982) for Atari 2600 by DSD/Camelot, commissioned by Johnson & Johnson for sponsoring its Crest Toothpaste, was similar to Atari's Kaboom! (1981) and the infamous Pepsi Invaders (1983) was even a Coca Cola commissioned ROM modification of Atari 2600 port of Space Invaders (1980) with few rules changes and the "PEPSI" letters instead of the aliens.

Since they weren't purchasable on stores, these game are pretty rare and valuable: Tooth Protectors could be aquired only mailing proof of purchase stamps to the company and Pepsi Invaders was only playable at Coca Cola 1983 sales convention, so very few copies were made.

Chase the Chuck Wagon (1983) - a fairly simple maze game available only via mail order by sending in proofs of purchase of a brand of dog food - is so rare that game collectors started using the term "chasing the chuckwagon" when referencing to their search for rare games.

One of the most famous advergame in history is Bally-Midway's Tapper (1983). But, ironically, it isn't an usual one... and probably it isn't an advergame story at all. Let's start from the beginning.

Tapper concept was to have a bartender serving drinks to an impatient and colorful roster of customers, collecting empty glasses and tips. Bally-Midway then proposed the concept to Budweiser, for adding advertising here and there in order to get the game in bars serving Budweiser and hoping for betters sales of the machine.

This inverse approach makes the Tapper story so fascinating and crucial. Chronologically, Tapper was a game with a funny concept first, finely designed and fun to play and then it was decided to use advertising for exploring a new market. And the final result of this tactic was that the game was so wanted that some of the arcade machines made their way to videogame arcades instead of the targeted bars, serving to Bally-Midway an unexpected and pretty dangerous happy problem.

With their Tapper leaving adults-only bars for kids-filled videogame arcades, Bally-Midway was accidentally promoting drinking to underaged this way - something quite illegal in the US. So the company, in 1984, decided make an arcade version of the game, stripping all the Budweiser references and changing the name of the game to a more generic (and non-alcoholic) Root Beer Tappper.

Gamers were already conscious and passionate consumers and good videogames were desired products by themselves, differentiating them from channels like TV and printed magazines. Is there a better way for discovering that than with making a legendary gaming masterpiece?

Plot!

Rush hour is starting right now, dear bartender! Run up and down, serve fresh glasses of beer to your the impatient customers, collect empty glasses before they broke and run for the tips for starting a nice dancing show, that will distract them for a little while!

Use UP/DOWN for moving, LEFT/RIGHT for running along the counters and hit the A BUTTON for serving a drink. Good luck!

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