A mature-rated property, entirely originated by the game industry, usually gets marketing support in the form of advertisements in enthusiast magazines and comic books, and television commercials on cable channels like Sci-Fi or during Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim hours. Broader mainstream coverage may reach young men’s magazines like Maxim and FHM– and that’s about where it will end. Spending our days inside the industry, it’s easy to forget that educating the public that one’s game even exists is, in itself, a huge triumph.

So we need to move beyond our smaller competitive mindsets– Halo versus BioShock or Call of Duty, for example– and start thinking about games versus movies or theme parks or any of the myriad ways people may choose to spend their leisure time. In this light the Burger King and Mountain Dew promotions make a little more sense. Mainstream acceptance of video games means just this kind of spectacle, and we can expect more, not less, of it in our future. We don’t have to like it particularly, but it is a step on the path towards, as Bungie likes to say, World Domination.