Do you know of any video games that were endorsed bycelebrities (artists, authors, athletes, scientists, world champions, etc)?

Some disasters that I recall are:
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City
Shaq Fu

Pretty much any decent sports game is endorsed by a sporting league/association, which makes it endorsed by the players by proxy.
Then there's the Madden games, which license teams and live off of the name of a famous coach.
Other sporting games, like Fight Night, usually licence a few star athletes.

Wouldn't all those World of Warcraft commercials count?

And many of the movie licensed games?

Or something like Street Fighter: the movie the game, where the actors are represented as digitalized sprites?

And many of the movie licensed games?

On that topic - many movie tie-in games can't recreate the actors likeness due to licensing problems. For example, Christian Bale wanted eighteen bajillion dollars in compensation for his likeness to appear in Terminator Salvation, so they had to make their own version of John Conner.

On that topic - many movie tie-in games can't recreate the actors likeness due to licensing problems. For example, Christian Bale wanted eighteen bajillion dollars in compensation for his likeness to appear in Terminator Salvation, so they had to make their own version of John Conner.

Does it only count as an endorsement if their likeness is able to be modeled in the game?


I mean, due to technical limitations they could only approximate Sylvester Stallone's likeness for the NES Rambo game...Even though his mug is all over the packaging and even the NES cart.

I'd want some definition of terms.

First, what level of support constitutes an endorsement? Second, what is your definition of celebrity?



Endorsement could mean a lot of things. It could range from "This game is awesome and quotes with me describing how awesome it is are all over the Internet because of how incredible I think it is' . Or it could be the level of endorsement that "The company pays me a lot of money to use my name and face, and I approve of this." Or it could mean "The sports league has given a bulk license, so I am contractually bound to sanction the game." All are endorsements, but is that what you mean?

Does endorsement require public written statements, or can we allow private statements as well? If a celebrity tells their friend that they enjoyed a game, does that qualify for your definition? I mean, they are a celebrity and they gave a positive affirmation about it, so it might.


Who are you including as celebrities? Are you including famous critics and game reviewers as celebrities? You've got game reviewers like Matt Casamassina who are celebrities in many circles; does his positive review count as an endorsement?

Are you including industry figures as celebrities? Are you allowing for people to endorse their own products? Does Will Wright saying he supports Spore or The Sims count as a celebrity endorsement? Does John Carmack endorsing an iD product count?


If you are liberal with your definitions I can easily say that most major games are endorsed by celebrities.

As for games specific games endorsed by celebrities, most of the major sports games are filled with names and faces and statistics of players, so that may be defined as endorsement. Movie games are similarly using names, faces, story lines, and more, which may be defined as endorsement. Major games are made by a bunch people who show up in the credits, some may be considered celebrities and their corporations are owned and run by industry celebrities, and I'm fairly sure these people will endorse their own games.

Steven Spielberg took it a step further, and designed a game for EA. (Boom Blox for Wii)